this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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I don't think CD-i and 3DO should be counted for this.
The 3DO had a weird business model and the price point was considering it didn't sell at a loss like most consoles do -- It didn't catch on because it was a weird interstitial thing that was more powerful than the then-popular SNES/Mega Drive but leagues less powerful than the (already announced, already on the way) PS1 and Saturn.
And the CD-i? That one didn't even intend to be a games console at first. Philips was trying to make a ~multimedia machine~ out of a belief that those 90s interactive encyclopedia/activity center CD-Roms that were popular on PC were the future of consumer media. It was priced like a high-end media player, because that's what they meant for it to be. They only pivoted to games at the ass-end of its lifecycle in hopes of salvaging the unmitigated disaster that had turned out to be. And when they did, they did so with a redesigned model that had a lot of the high-end features removed to "console-ize" their multimedia player, making it much cheaper.
Hey, they were both advertised alongside the rest of the gen 5 consoles, they absolutely count.
But hey, if you're gonna be that guy AND ignore the post-PS3 consoles that all launched at higher prices, how about the Neo Geo? Because that launched at $650 in 1991 money.
The point is that no, the PS3 does not hold "have the dubious honor of most expensive console at launch" by any definition of that concept.
Fair enough.