I'm of two minds. Here in Australia the ACCC is anti-region coding, but they're also blocking a merger between our two major pay TV providers. I'd like to tell them to back off the merger, 'cause it's just entertainment (and *any* change in my Foxtel offerings would be a good thing), but where does that leave region coding? I have no answer.

Retailers will sell a system for the wholesale price, plus a markup. If the NES retail price only fell by $10 from 1985 to 1989, either the wholesale price also only fell slightly, or it fell considerably.

If the former, NES is under no obligation to lower its price over time, even if its costs decrease. This would allow Nintendo to make extra profits, but that's legal.

If the latter, Nintendo was forcing its retailers to make more profits than they would have otherwise, because they kept the retail price up while the wholesale price fell.

In that case, it is the retailers who made the excess profits, not Nintendo. So it's not clear why Nintendo is being penalized.

The only Nintendo system I've ever purchased I got at rock
bottom prices. I simply waited until the thing was discontinued...

A fun toy, the VirtualBoy, but it is easy to see why it didn't
succeed. Only one person can even look at the game play at
a time, so it is hard to share game playing tips. The red
images are a bit odd, the 3-D only so-so, and the game
selection not so hot.

Price fixing is and should be illegal, whoever does it. It is deeply and truly anti-capitalist, and free-marketers should come down on it harder than anyone. If capitalism ever self-destructs, it will be the mollycoddling of these guys (as well as the support for the Enrons, Worldcome, et al) that causes it.

Am I the only one who sees it as odd to be suing an entertainment company for this reason? Consumers don't need to buy Nintendo stuff to survive...