Original sin: AI edition

MechWarrior 2? Man, that takes me back…

Ah, sorry. It stands for “Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price.”

In the U.S. the law doesn’t allow a manufacturer to require that retailers sell their product at a particular price, but they’re free to “suggest” one so that’s how we ended up with the MSRP.

It doesn’t carry any real weight, but it generally serves to anchor consumer expectations for a product’s value. (It also gives retailers an easy metric to compare sale prices against.)

The MSRP for Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges in the mid-80s, adjusted to today’s U.S. Dollar, would average around $150-200.

I don’t think games should cost that much, but we stuck with the $60 price point for literal decades so it’s not completely unreasonable for someone to talk about raising prices.

(I also write this while having only bought one game? two? In the past year.)