>> In Spain tons of people bought either NES Chinese clones (even in the early PSX era in ~1997) because they were dirt cheap.
I'll let you know a secret. I bought my console in 1997! :)
1997 was maybe the year of peak hyperinflation in Romania, I've checked my parent's paychecks from the period and while both of them were employed in white collar (better paying) jobs, both their income converted in today's money didn't make $200. Not euro, dollars, although recently that seems to catch in parity. A monthly income for salaried parents of €150, taking care besides them and the household of me and my two brothers, so a family of 5. Therefore "dirt cheap" didn't apply here and I guess, I was fortunate for being to afford even such a console.
On a side note, around that period, my younger brother went with a school exchange in Austria. Thought of a lunch at Mcdonald's as the most luxurious thing one could experience. Today I'm paying some €10 for such a lunch and don't think about it but imagine you'd be paying 6.67% of your net income for a lunch (how much it cost relative to my parent's income in 1997). That'd be €267 in today's money for me, fuck, I ain't going even to a restaurant and paying that, I'm not a millionaire!
I'll let you know a secret. I bought my console in 1997! :)
1997 was maybe the year of peak hyperinflation in Romania, I've checked my parent's paychecks from the period and while both of them were employed in white collar (better paying) jobs, both their income converted in today's money didn't make $200. Not euro, dollars, although recently that seems to catch in parity. A monthly income for salaried parents of €150, taking care besides them and the household of me and my two brothers, so a family of 5. Therefore "dirt cheap" didn't apply here and I guess, I was fortunate for being to afford even such a console.
On a side note, around that period, my younger brother went with a school exchange in Austria. Thought of a lunch at Mcdonald's as the most luxurious thing one could experience. Today I'm paying some €10 for such a lunch and don't think about it but imagine you'd be paying 6.67% of your net income for a lunch (how much it cost relative to my parent's income in 1997). That'd be €267 in today's money for me, fuck, I ain't going even to a restaurant and paying that, I'm not a millionaire!