Buying Video Games In 2001

[@CStrachanCreative]

Father Spawnwave gives us the gift of Christmas past.

[@ReshiramR52]

Please make more videos on old Christmas catalogs

[@armandorojo394]

I worked at EB Games at that time. Great time to be alive

[@kjack115]

I remember working at Kmart and using my check to buy a screen for my GameCube. Which I put in my backpack and sat in the back of the class in a hoodie with a wavebird plugged into the wall playing Zelda.

[@DGKMcfly01]

RIP Dave Mirra that game was so underrated at the time. Thanks for sharing these nostalgic moments spawn wave. As a new parent this reminds me how much memories really matter in our lives

[@itsgbox92]

Thps2 gave you access to the bmx demo and it was fun. Those bail videos in the classic thps games were the best! Thinking about getting an old ps2 just so I can play these games!

[@Johnebs]

It is funny thinking that $50 is a good price for these games. That is the equivalent of ~$80 today. Games were not cheap back then.

[@JPD2587]

Yeah people who complain about game prices today are giving away that they never paid attention to prices when they were younger. Some N64 games were $70 CDN in 1996. And there was no Steam to buy AAA games for $5 a couple years after release.

[@Johnebs]

@JPD2587 Yeah. But cant blame them. We are not expected to think about those things when we are young.

[@cbgg1585]

@@JPD2587 Complaining and fake outrage is the norm of society these days. Not surprising.

[@tangstanky]

These are actually some of my favorite videos you do now!

[@esho6460]

As a 92 baby this series has been awesome to re live some of my childhood 🙌

[@michaelmyersplays4992]

1990 baby hell yeah

[@Revenant_Knight]

You mention with inflation but the prices are deceptive. Why? Because pay hasn’t kept up. In 2001 I was in school and had a job for $10 an hour. My rent was $450 a month for a 2/2 in a nice area of Tampa and included everything but power, a nice new car was $12-15K, and an expensive grocery bill was $100. Today, that same job pays $15 an hour but the same apartment is $2,200 a month, comparable cars are $35K, and an expensive grocery bill is $300.

[@HKgaming86]

bingo, ppl don't need to cap for expensive games

[@MrMoogle]

I bring up this fact fairly often. When I look back on high school, college and post college, my pay was never less than $10.50 an hour (Menards paid crazy good for a high school student back then). By the time I graduated college, I was making $50K annually in 2006. I had a 1200 SF 2/2 apartment I shared with my friend and our rent came out to $350 each per month just outside of a major metro area. I drove a brand new Mazda3 and the payment was around $250 a month - making it easy to pay it off early. From that point forward, my purchasing power has only gone down with each passing year. Even with pay increases.

[@Revenant_Knight]

​@@MrMoogle This... A lot of it started with the outrageous housing prices when everyone started going condo with their apartments. Suddenly our affordable housing was crushed by places demanding $250K. Props on the Mazda 3. I had a Gen 1 2005 2.3S that I got for $18K, and still have a 2009 MazdaSpeed3.

[@DerkuiDerkui]

I remember buying the OG Xbox when it first came out at Target. Games at Wal-Mart and Target cost 49.99, but places like EB games and Toys R Us would charge 5 dollars more for games.

[@gabegoforth]

I actually got the PS2 with MGS2 and THPS3 that Christmas. Lol, I remember being so excited I couldn't even sleep. Such a great year for games.

[@Chamberz55]

I miss EB. Hard to believe many of the existing crusty GameStops used to be beautiful Electronics Boutiques. RIP.

[@snkfan]

eb's changed to gamestop after the stock market surge

[@HKgaming86]

@@snkfan ah a fellow canuck (EB had been owned by Gamestop for years by years by that point and were already crusty FunkoPop filled messes in other words they were EB by name only. Early 2000s EBs were a different beast)

[@Bacher108]

Oh man... Everquest 1.... I spent way too many hours playing that game... what a time to be alive. Miss my friends from back then.

[@tomsimmons7673]

The late 80's and early 90's were the best. Toys R US, Kiddie City, Children's Palace, Kabee Toy Store for actual toy stores. Then the electronics stores like Best Buy, Radio Shack, Circuit City. Then there were chain stores like Gold Circle, Hills, Zayre, Aimes. Amazon and Walmart have run so many businesses out of business.

[@FallicIdol]

Finally, someone who remembers Children's Palace!

[@tomsimmons7673]

God. So many stores I even forgot about K-Mart. Sears too. The old big Christmas catalog. Lol.

[@FallicIdol]

Babages was awesome and there were actually independent video game stores back then.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

Not adapting to modern times, thinking the internet was a passing fad, joining the New York Stock Exchange, terrible customer service, overpriced, and more are why so many retailers have died in the U.S.

[@lazarus3536]

Ah, my Freshman year in High-school. Early 2000's was peak timeline.

[@Revenant_Knight]

For pricing and pay it was great. However, we then got into a forever war in 2001 that still hasn’t completely fizzled out today. There was very real concern about a military draft, and the good economy fell apart in 2007 as it was mostly fake.

[@Intersektionalitet]

Early 2000's was nice. Mid 90's was awesome ;)

[@Revenant_Knight]

@@Intersektionalitet Mid 90s.... It was a good time. Tech was rapidly advancing. Laser Tag was virtually a sport. Many of the game series we play today got their start. Of course my car back then was a Dodge Neon so not everything was perfect LOL. That said, for anyone who feels they missed out, just turn your cell phone off while you're out, use a printed map-quest paper to figure out where you're going, go watch a movie at an actual movie theater, play some laser tag, hang out in a retro arcade for a few hours, and finally meet up with your friends at someone's house to drink some Surge, eat pizza, and play PS1 (Toshinden, MK3), N64 (Mario Kart and Smash Bros), and SNES (Bomberman 2) games. If you have a computer, play some Quake Duke Nukem 3D and Quake 1 or 2. Toss in a DVD of Screamers or Broken Arrow in the background on a CRT. You'll get a pretty good idea of what it was like. Bonus for anyone that goes outside to a beach and plays some volleyball in the morning.

[@Intersektionalitet]

@@Revenant_Knight Ah laser tag is nice. I would often go to a place called Laserdome.

[@DesignedByTaz]

Man the nostalgia…I miss this so much. Such simpler times…

[@tsxybeast6989]

55$ in 2001 was about $97.98

[@MacRoss1792]

The GameCube came in Europe on May 2002. The euro was not fully implemented at the time. I remember paying ~1690 Francs back then. I still have the sticker price on my box. That was a lot of money for the teenager I was. When the PS2 came out I remember the tag price that shocked many : 2990 Francs. When you only have a 20 Francs allowance, you think it's unachievable 😂

[@balaam_7087]

It was a far better time. You could walk into a store, pick up, hold and then *permanently own* games. The only way someone could take them from you was to get past the pitbull and the mossberg 500

[@Supermanohman]

These are bringing back memories. Born in 1985 and I was in my teenage prime during the PS2 Xbox GC days so I remember buying a lot of these with my own money from my first job.

[@brettsiebenhaar]

3:57 oh so many memories with Amped... 4:52 Project Gotham Racing was my first game I had, got it for Xmas with the Xbox that year

[@Eh2004E]

2001 was definitely a year 😊

[@mr_m4613]

Yeah it was also the year the world changed as we know it.

[@jr2904]

And good year until September, and then everything went to absolute shit

[@WillyFresh92]

If only I had money back in the day when I was 9.

[@ShinobiShaw]

Did you get good grades? That was always the deal, do well in school get rewards😂 😂

[@clapdouglas]

The Greatest console Generation…😢

[@janedoe3043]

I remember being so pissed how little GC stuff was shown compared to the other systems. Xbox and Sony was always paying for more coverage at the time and then people believed the hype and decided the cube was lame. I had all 3 systemsand the cube was my favorite hands down.

[@kevintappminville195]

LOL "We would do weird things. People would have a 512Mb of ram, and put a 256Mb to make it 768Mb for some reason." I'm watching that on a 24Gb DDR4 Laptop. 8Gb from factory 16Gb added! LOL

[@Fanto_Sir]

2001 xbox would be $535 in today's money

[@janedoe3043]

True, but other things were way cheaper. The dollar burgers at fast food for example were probably 70% larger. A diner dinner was about 5 bucks instead of 15. A liter of coca cola was a dollar. Some things get cheaper because of slave labor in places like China and other things get more expensive because of corporate greed, flat wages and more scarcity. I'd gladly go back and pay these prices to avoid the bad that exists today.what really sucks is how bad it's going to be very soon.

[@Fanto_Sir]

@janedoe3043 Oh, I agree 💯. Back then, China's economy was smaller than the UK. Funnelling all the western cheap labour there has made them the juggernaut they are now, whilst many things sold here are more expensive and poorer quality. I'd still never like to have to survive on processed American food. The safety standards are medieval compared to the EU.

[@mr_m4613]

Its 500 dollars right now lol

[@riotman3579]

Also back then scalpers rarely exist

[@kennypowers1945]

Take me baaaaack

[@BoozeJob]

"Je suis livreur de pizza, la joie de mon estomac" - Lego Island 1 on PC

[@blizmo2]

The whole video makes me feel old as hell 2001 the year after I graduated high school Going to Blockbuster every weekend

[@poiXquared]

Man these are so cool and nostalgic. I didn't get to see these dedicated gaming catalogs in person though. I'm from the Philippines and we didn't have these. But I do have a grandmother working in CA and she always sends seasonal JCPenny catalogs and I would always flick through the pages to get to the toys section and like go gaga over the toys there. Especially when I get to see the GBA oooh boy it like I wanted to rip the page and make the real thing manifest on my hands. Good times.

[@SrtRacerBoy]

That 2001 flyer was the beginning of PEAK Gaming. There was something special about 2001-2013

[@scherge]

This was very interesting and it felt very nostalgic. You should do more of these videos than one or two a year. Happy Holidays! ^^

[@marksammie830]

back in the day consoles and games released in different times in different places.. it didnt come out til spring 2002 in britain.

[@jamesroviezzo7924]

Back then they made those portable console screens so kids can play in the car on long car rides

[@HansBoopie]

Received my PS2 with FFX and MGS2 that year for Christmas. Thank you grandmother!😢

[@instahawk8422]

I still have a few of these old gaming catalogs watching these videos makes me want to dig them out and look through them

[@janedoe3043]

I worked there at that point. That takes me back.

[@MrMoogle]

This was my Senior year of high school. So many fond memories from that holiday season. And yeah, looking back there are a lot of missed purchase opportunities. Passing on the $50 Dreamcast still stings. I was one year away from getting my job as a BestBuy service tech, so seeing those memory prices brought back memories. People would line up on Sundays when there was a good rebate for DDR/DDR2 memory and hard drives.

[@General_Chicken_1]

Lmao kids with mew factories at school with their GameSharks 😂

[@ehwick8175]

The font type is soo good lol. Its very nostalgic.

[@capcomfan82]

2001 was a sick year in gaming

[@Ricky21240]

Thanks for another great classic old days video.

[@lcruz1544]

Loved project Gotham racing. What a time to be alive when that dropped

[@kevinjohnson9929]

Mario 64 didn’t come with my 64 when i bought it on launch day. It was a separate purchase.

[@ehwick8175]

So happy I got to be a kid at this time. It was exciting.

[@xxnike0629xx]

2001 $300 is about $534.73 today. From what I remember, the PS2-Xbox-GameCube gen had games being priced at $49.99 at most ... valued at $89.10 today. 💀 This is definitely nostalgic. Crazy to think this was 2001... 23 years ago... 💀

[@KappaCow]

Fun times. I remember my local mall around that time had a Gamestop, 2 EB games, and a mom and pop game trading store. You could spend all day there just game shopping.

[@niveketihw1897]

I miss those days greatly.

[@SnowRaver-p2v]

Oh the nostalgia

[@jaynukem1929]

My God, Xbox and Gamecube couldn't even compete with how much PS2 had to offer at that time with it's Library.

[@soopa-nuka7175]

MGS 2 is the time RGT 85 turned his life around. Remember, it's never to late to right the ship. Happy holidays everyone

[@scott_marsters13]

This is the nostalgia I yearn for

[@gamerincorporated154]

I didn't know Electronic Boutique was still around in the 2000s. I got my very first EB catalog after I got the Sega Master System in 1989

[@lyntoncoulthard4191]

Thank you for the nostalgia, can you do more of these.

[@savagemadman2054]

Thinking back to 2001 - my city had (at least) 3x independent game stores, 1x Compucentre (Canadian mall chain), 2x EB Games, and 4x big box electronic stores. If Radioshack counted I think we still had 2 or 3 at that point. May have been even more in the eastern fringes of the city where I never ventured. Today we're down to a single Gamestop and one Best Buy.

[@timelymirror7826]

many stores back then for getting a console

[@ShinobiShaw]

I was 17 in 2001 ❤ my PS2 especially games like Onimusha, Devil May Cry, RECVX, Silent Hill 2, MGS2 and anxiously awaiting FF10, Rez,Xenosaga😂😂❤❤❤

[@NewPSCity]

What a time to be a gamer. We had tons of options. Miss those days. I remember playing Odd World on the xbox back inside a sears in Queens, New York. They had a demo .

[@desertgsrider1]

Yeah those $55 games would be just under $100 nowadays with inflation and gamers are still losing their s**t over $70 games this generation.

[@vincentvega3093]

We don't do time travel though, so nobody would pay 110 for such games now.

[@bobbywrtm]

Thing is those $55 games back in the 2000s are shipped with complete content and no bug.... meanwhile 70$ game nowadays released with content locked behind deluxe edition/season pass and they were shipped broken with a lot of bugs lol

[@mistabrown830]

@@bobbywrtm Then stop buying triple AAA games and buy smaller budget titles

[@mikeymacaque]

Inflation doesn’t really tell the whole story: the median US salary was ~ $42k in 2001 (about $74k in today’s money). The median US salary in 2024 is ~$62k. We literally make less money now.

[@oblivieon1567]

I worked for EB back then. EB was typically $5 more. So games that were $39.99 were $44.99. $49.99 were $54.99 and so on.

[@MedalionDS9]

ATI Radeon graphics cards... great... not even few years prior in the late 90's... Voodoo Grafx cards... I absolutely did not have a PC that could handle those I think back then

[@geepeso84]

MGS2 was so awesome I grabbed it immediately. I still remember the rain water hitting the ground near snake when he’s on the tanker in the beginning. So beautiful😢I started high school in 1998 in Fullerton CA. ….school, skateboarding and smokin weed all day then come home and game it all night. It was a great time to be alive.

[@AaronGarcia-tv8lw]

Huge fan of your videos! Love the back in time series. I would like to see some more teardowns. Its been a minute since youve done one. I would like to see you teardown the sega saturn and talk about it, and side by side it with the og playstation.

[@PacmanxJr]

I loved watching this. Brought back some memories for sure.

[@LtJackStone]

I remember $49.99 being the norm for new titles and $39.99 being for the lesser quality titles.

[@medeusmediuth7543]

I think I had one of the GBA lights in that magazine. It wasn't good, but I loved it because I could play my games in the dark

[@DeborahDeBoer]

That was fun,thanks!

[@cdawg4574]

EB Games I think is a Canadian store, the same company for GameStop in America. Prices were probably a little cheaper in America.

[@ParadoxalDream]

The EB Games brand is defunct in Canada too now, it only survives in Australia and New-Zealand. This flyer in from the US before the merger with Gamestop in 2005.

[@frankholstein480]

So I worked the launch of both the original Xbox and GameCube at Software etc. It was an interesting time, I don’t know why people think Xbox took off immediately, it really took people playing Halo and telling their friends for it to take off. I just remember we had launch systems for about two weeks, and of course Nintendo fans cleaned out our 50 systems on the first day. PS2 was in good supply but we were still selling multiple a day. 2001 was a great Christmas season!

[@TheGms24]

We got our gamecube but my parents didn't know we needed a memory card to go with the system and couldn't find one for weeks. I was able to speed run Luigis mansion at 10 years old after a month

[@AnthonySmith-bj9mo]

hi Spawn Wave

[@kevinjohnson9929]

Gaming all the way back to the 70s definitely impacted your home budgets more then than today. We had a $150 weekly salary in the 80’s so imagine 1/3 of your take home buying 1 game as opposed to today $450 week buying 1 game at $70. Still hard to prices to deal with

[@MasterChris666]

This brings me back alot of time looking at them has a kid

[@jamesjordan3192]

Love these videos J

[@srooij]

oh man the nostalgia hits hard with this one :)

[@thewatermelonpigeon2716]

We all know spawnwave would basically buy the whole store of video games if he got the chance

[@REZIVORsince93]

Hell, I'm still gaming shopping like it's 2001-2012 haha..

[@Miller_Lite]

My 9th grade teacher was cool by bringing his new Xbox for us to play with back when it came out. And he was super cool when he let me take it home as I was the only gamer in his class room and challenged me to beat Halo as I was a Nintendo gamer. I ended up beating it in 4 days. For the GameCube my dad was going to buy me one in January of 2002 but they were sold out so he only got me a copy rogue squadron 2, I did however got one a month later on my birthday.

[@nickm5419]

jfc the trust people had back then is crazy

[@Miller_Lite]

@@nickm5419 yeah, I think I kept it for about 2 months til I beat all the games he had.

[@hooptyhoop7862]

For me to be 12 again. I miss these days.

[@fantomx]

Maaan I would love to relive the early 2000s

[@DaniRose85]

I remember getting Metal Gear Solid 2 on release day (November 13, 2001). I bought it at my local mall. I also remember how mad I was about playing as Snake for only a small portion of the game and also about how short that game was! It almost felt like a tech demo. Impressive game but way too short. MGS3 was so, so much better.

[@scoth2455]

As an elder millennial this video brings back memories.

[@bottledwaterprod]

I forgot about that Gamecube case! I had one,... and now I want another one.

[@saldanamoreno]

I really liked this video. So much nostalgia! =)

[@EXDiamondDogs]

Damn that ps2 christmas line up was stack

[@keythegamer2933]

Seeing how cheap some of these game were back then makes me sad! Some of these games now are pretty expensive.

[@juicemanvon9859]

Project Gotham Racing was 🔥

[@kise_ryota]

I really enjoy these videos

[@steamedatom]

After seeing this games don't feel expensive... but we still should be getting manuals they still make the spot for it

[@Dewayne219]

You unlocked a core memory for me... I think my first gaming experience was Lego Island 1 on PC... am I old?

[@timelymirror7826]

many systems being sold at one point in time

[@michaelkoltz1033]

No price on the Dreamcast? No price on the Game Cube either.

[@HKgaming86]

Dreamcast was fire saled out of the stores the year prior. I got mine for a hundred bucks cad. Games were going for 5-10$, it was a wild time to be a gamer 🤘

[@HKgaming86]

(maybe it wasn't the year prior, at least that's what spawn is saying, but I do distinctly remember spending 100$ cad on my DC which was not at all equivalent to the 50$usd Spawn mentions)

[@John_Lee_]

17:34 mario 64 did not come with the system

[@jeffmendoza7899]

if i could go back, i would clear my entire state of pokemon cards at that price

[@DaBigCheeso]

I wish I'd grabbed a couple of those $50 Dreamcasts. I had one from launch day but if I'd known how much they'd go for 2 decades later...

[@jr2904]

I believe this was the year that my brother and I got the Zelda Oracle games, I got Ages and he got Seasons

[@noliva24]

I remember getting the GameCube for Xmas when it came out. Got melee with it. One of my cousins got pikmin and the other got Luigi’s mansion. We played the shit out of smash. But none of our parents got us memory cards so we had to go get them the day after Xmas lmao.

[@tonystark6306]

If you had 1GB of RAM in 2001, you were the fuckin man. Facts.

[@artmusicliterature9859]

Memory unlocked!

[@Finnishmanni]

Gotta remember that $20 in 2001 is $35 today. So they sold megaman legends 2 for $35... and.. pacman collection for $62... Let that sink in. Xbox and ps2 were $530 each.