Yeah, it'd be nice to buy NES & SNES games at those prices. But when those prices were listed (in the 90s), that was just last-gen for then. And we can get last-gen games at those kind of prices right now. PS2, Xbox, and GameCube games are dirt-freaking cheap at the moment. That's something that's always been a trend in gaming.
I'm just saying that NES games really aren't as bad as people are making it in this thread. I mean it's not like Saturn, TurboGrafx-16, Sega CD, or SNES games. Those are the wallet-killers to collect for.
It wasn't last gen. Those prices were on the cusp of the dreamcast. The NES was 2.5 generations old.
It has to be looked at in multiple ways to try and minimize the apple to oranges comparison. First, compare with contemporaries. Have most other consoles at that time experienced a similar jump in prices. Not really. The Master System and Atari are still fairly cheap. The TG-16 only recently began climbing in price. If you look at the collecting trends, people have been finishing their NES collections and moving to TG-16 or SNES primarily. It's the same group causing most of that cost increase.
You also have to look at it in terms of percentage of price then and price now. Ultimately, a cart only game from 25 years ago is 25% the cost of a brand new retail game. It is 50%-75% the cost of a new retail game approximately 1 year after release. To me, this is fairly telling.
You also have to look at it in terms of inflation. In 1998 Mario 3 was $3. In 2014 it is $15. The best that I can find reliably is 2013 dollars, so we have to go with that. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics $1 (1998) = 1.42 (2013). This implies Mario 3 should be $4.26 absent outside market influences. I stated earlier they were twice what they should be. That was taking into account some level of nostalgia driving the price up for people. 200% seems reasonable. A 352% increase from the inflation adjusted price seems overpriced.
So, comparing them to both the older consoles and modern consoles, the NES ranks on the high end.