Console Wars: 2007 Video Game Prices by Console

This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.

Below are the charts of the average video game price for Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, and Nintendo DS. You can click the charts to see a bigger image.

Nintendo 64's Average Game Price 2007


Playstation 1's Average Game Price 2007


Playstation 2's Average Game Price 2007


Xbox's Average Game Price 2007


Gamecube's Average Game Price 2007


Nintendo DS's Average Game Price 2007


Analysis of the Video Game Prices
The charts above show that the Playstation 1 was the only past generation console where the prices actually increased from 2006 to 2007. Every other console had a lower price on Dec. 31st than on Jan 1st, but the PS1's average price was $14.49 at the end of the year compared to $13.29 at the beginning. The Nintendo 64 was very close to keeping the same prices during the year, but were down by $0.01. So basically flat for the year.

Every single console does follow the same basic trends though, it is just the degree of price change that is different. The prices steadily drop throughout the year until November and then start increasing again very rapidly in November and December. PS1 was the same but had a much smaller price decrease during the year and a very big price spike at the end. N64 had big price drops almost even with the "All Game" average for most of the year but then during the holidays prices increased the most of any console percentage wise, 53.4%.

If this data shows one thing, it is that collecting older video games is the best way to ensure your collection won't plummet in value. Buying the newer games is great for playing and having a good time, but they won't make you much money as a collector.

Between Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox, pricing trends were very similar with the Xbox having the biggest price decrease for the year and the lowest average price overall, $7.51 per game. Playstation 2 and Gamecube had average prices of $13.52 and $16.99 respectively.

Nintendo DS prices are more volatile than the other consoles because we have fewer games in the average, but overall it behaved the way you would expect.

Unfortunately we don't have enough data for the Xbox 360, Wii, or Playstation 3 to show charts of their average game prices last year. We only started adding those consoles to our pricing database at the very end of 2008 and didn't have complete data until the middle of the year. Later this year we will have regular updates about pricing for every major system from NES to Xbox 360, but those will have to wait for now.