"Originally released at $150. That's $488 in today's money." Dave, where did you conjure those figures up from? That's a multiplication factor of
3.25 since 1979 until today. So what to do with such claims? Tear them apart!
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Based upon the inflation rate by the Reserve Bank of Australia, a basket of good and services purchased in 1979 for $150 would cost $665 in 2014. That takes many factors into account, including the lower cost of electrical goods and furniture. In 1979, we made most of our furniture in Australia and electronics came out of Australia or Japan where the manufacturing cost was much higher than in than in China today.
http://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualDecimal.html In any case, that is a factor of
4.4 times.
I think the fairest way is to see what percentage of a salary would buy the Walkman then, and what percentage of a salary would that amount be today. That is how long would you have to work then compared to now to buy the same item.
So let's look at salary growth since around 1979: The average EE salary in 1979 was around $13K per annum. The average salary of an EE today is roughly 124K per annum, based upon
http://www.engineeringjobs.com.au/engineering-industry-salary-information (Seems a tad high). That means the salary has multiplied by roughly
10 times even though EE salaries have languished since the dot com crash of 2002.
The average EE would have to work 24 hours to earn the $150 back in 1979. Today, with your $488 figure, the average EE would only have to work 8 hours. In fact, 24 hours today earns the average electronic engineer in Australia $1430, not $488.
One can conclude the Sony Walkman cost a lot more in 1979, than "$488 in today's money".