At the recently held consumer electronics show E3, Microsoft enraged cash-strapped gamers with an announcement that its latest system, the Xbox One X will cost nearly $500. That’s actually par for the course, because video games are two things: fun…and expensive.

MAGNAVOX ODY$$EY

The first widely available video game system in the U.S. came out all the way back in 1972. The Magnavox Odyssey offered a couple of dozen games, all of them variations on Pong—in other words, basic shapes in black-and-white in which players hit a round dot with a rectangle. (If they wanted color, they could put a plastic sheet on their TV screen.) But the Odyssey was revolutionary for its time, and sold more than 100,000 units…despite a price tag of $99.99. In 2017 dollars, that’s the equivalent of $580.

ATARI’$ 2600

Video games becoming a permanent, lucrative, and popular part of the culture really happened with the introduction of the Atari 2600 in 1977. Graphics were still primitive by today’s standards, but they were better than what the Odyssey offered, with recognizable figures and colors—plus you could play the big arcade games like Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Frogger on it without shelling out quarters. Players just had to shell out up front: The Atari 2600 cost $200, which, adjusted for inflation is a whopping $760.

$NK NEO-GEO

Atari went bust in the mid-1980s, but Nintendo and Sega made home gaming popular and lucrative again in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The Nintendo Entertainment System cost a relatively affordable $100 in 1990 (with two free games), or $179 in 2017 money. That’s relatively affordable when placed up against a new competitor that debuted in 1991. Japanese company SNK’s Neo-Geo console was priced at $650—nearly $1,100 when inflation is taken into consideration. Far more powerful in terms of computing power than the other systems on the market, the Neo-Geo offered an experience similar to that of sophisticated arcade games; in fact, players could save their games on their at-home Neo-Geo, and then continue at a Neo-Geo arcade console. (Why anybody would want to do that is unclear.) The games weren’t cheap either—they cost $150, or more than an entire system made by Nintendo.