1993 - The Year of Good Stuff
Thursday / 08.30.07 / 09:22PM / Joe / comments: 3
 You think gaming today has outrageous prices, a confusing abundance of consoles and formats, ridiculous hype, and too many cash-in licenses and Me Too titles?
It ain't "nothin'" compared to 1993.
Witness the EB product catalog, May 1993 edition, fresh from the fourhman.home archives. Let's review. The Super NES vs. Sega Genesis war was over and the Genesis had won... but Sega's crazy CD add-on had been out for a year and already a failure. The Game Gear was only two years old and widely presumed to destroy the five year old Game Boy, even though it wasn't.
The Saturn would arrive one year later. The PlayStation, two years. The N64 wouldn't bare its stupid claw controllers for another three years. So we still had a good long time before the gaming universe's next major rivalry.
I'm going to leaf through this catalog issue with you over several weblog updates... all twelve pages of it, although I didn't bother with the back half of DOS 6.0 games and PC "productivity" titles (but I did snigger at the aptly named pre-Windows accounting software, "Microsoft Profit".) All of these thumbs click out to full-size versions, so feel free to zoom in and make your own jokes at 1993's expense. Just about every text block is hilarious.
 
PAGE 2: Right away a shocker! $75 for the Genesis version of Street Fighter II! Seriously! I'll never whine about the new $60 price point again. I think we've been getting off like freeloaders for the past ten years of $50 games. And look at that: EGM has already declared Street Fighter II the "Game of the Decade" and we're only three years in. This is the ONLY pre-order game in the whole catalog. Boy, times sure have changed there.
Hey Sushi-X. Miss ya.
PAGE 3: Now, I didn't get a Genesis until '96 or so, but I somehow managed to find an old Menacer. I think I also have both games that use it, too.
GAME of the DECADE aside, kind of a weird start to the catalog, eh? You got a bankable sports celebrity and the new X-Men game, but Ecco is a year old and nobody ever liked Taz-Mania or the Menacer. You can't even count on some Sonic clip art to help shill the Genesis bundle pack.
Elbo's there, though. And he's boxin'.
 
PAGE 4: Who in the hell is going to find that Flashback game there among all the sports titles? At least this page features our first "NEW" game, Bulls Versus Blazers and the NBA Playoffs, which I guess means we haven't yet figured out how to cram a full sports season onto a Genesis ROM.
PAGE 5: Wow, Night Trap. There's so much bad mojo around that game that it's hard to believe that at one time you could pick up an EB catalog and see it advertised right between some shitty Batman game and Joe Montana.
Man, is the cost spread crazy or what? The cheapest games on the page are (failed) Sega CD titles at $49.99... but the Genesis stuff ranges up to $64.99, not including Street Fighter II, the GAME OF THE DECADE.
And is there, like, a single good Sega game anywhere to be seen?
Next time: Nintendo! | 
I remember looking at the box art for both Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger FOREVER back in the day. In a SEARS, no less.
I think one was about $65, the other $75. I can't remember which.
I'd go on to buy (and love) both...
...but when you're a punk kid whose entire fortune goes right into gaming, it's amazing how many games I DID have. Oy.
Pretty sure $75 was the most I've ever spent on a single game, keeping in mind that I didn't purchase Guitar Hero myself.
I bet Earthbound was expensive, too. It came with a strategy guide. I got that at what I think was a Clover department store at the time.
Not many dedicated game stores in DE back in the day, I guess.
Oh, and I like that the arrow under the Genesis on page 3 promises SONIC 2, not the original Sonic.
Shame, because the original's what you're gettin'.
I miss pack-in games, by the way.
Another wacky, game-buying story from my youth. This took place at an Electronics Boutique, meaning one had finally been added to the Christiana Mall.
Earthworm Jim 2 had just been released (dating this story at about 1995 or early 1996). I, however, was finally picking up the FIRST EWJ game for the SNES at a lovely $15 price point.
I got home, opened the package...and found that the EB monkey had accidentally slipped an Earthworm Jim 2 cartridge into my EWJ 1 box. Kept the brand new game and the unintentional $35-45 discount, then went back and bought the original for $15 or so. Lucky day for Young Tony.
I think the highest price I ever paid for a single video game was $80 on Hey You Pikachu (N64). And that's before tax, Mr. Blue Hen.
I will have to amend that assertion once Rock Band comes out.