$299 is about half the price, not corrected for inflation, of the original, which started at $595 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64).
I think that’s impressive, given the (likely) way lower production run.
I think that’s impressive, given the (likely) way lower production run.
This price reduction was the difference maker in allowing my family to (barely) afford to buy me a C64 in late 1983 (and this is what I learned to code on, first in MS BASIC, then in 6510 assembler).
The price for a C64 was thousands of East German Marks, at least half a year of salaries (the salary spread was low, so that's engineers or workers or managers).
An Amiga cost 25,000 Marks towards the end of the GDR, which was about two years of salaries (income was from below 1,000 Marks to ca. 1,500 for high earners, much more than that was unusual). This put 16 bit computing at home or school out of the hands of almost everyone, unless they had generous relatives in the West who sent them one. Even at work, the 8-bit PCs were still much more common (e.g. PC 1715 - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_1715), with a CP/M clone OS.
But at least they were all available. Our own CAOS (Cassette Aided Operating System- https://www.mpm-kc85.de/html/CAOS_42.htm) 8 bit systems based on Z80 clone CPUs, KC-85 (1/2/3/4) where not too shabby, for work and serious stuff at least the later -3 and even more so the -4 lines were superior to the C64, easier to program, and much more usable screen (https://www.mpm-kc85.de/).
The state was pretty hands-off. My own school's physics teacher started a computer club in the 1980s and he spent thousands of public school money on exclusively Western computers, from ZX spectrum (the very first one) to Atari 800 XL, C64, C128, with both cassette and disk drives. That must have cost a lot. Still surprises me that nobody asked him to buy East German, especially since in the 8-bit range our own systems would have been perfectly fine for the purpose.
The original $595 in 1983 would be about $1,997.57 today.
Similarly, $199 in 1983 would equal around $647.30 in 2025 dollars.
Adjusting for performance would be even more ludicrous. The computing power of about any modern smartphone would have cost billions, if not trillions, in 1983. Even this device is much faster than the original (48MHz in Turbo mode).
That would make that $2k about $100k, the price of 50 Commodore 64s at launch.