While I don't think the price for the upcoming PHB is unreasonable, this statement is not true.
Here are the prices of seven different
Player's Handbooks, adjusted for inflation using
this calculator.
- Players Handbook (June 1978): $9.95 --> $47.07
- Player's Handbook (April 1989): $20.00 --> $50.11
- Player's Handbook (May 1995): $25.00 --> $50.66
- Player's Handbook (August 2000): $19.95 --> $35.61
- Player's Handbook v.3.5 (July 2003): $29.95 --> $50.23
- Player's Handbook (June 2008): $34.95 --> $49.26
- Player's Handbook (August 2014): $49.95 --> $64.77
Those are the initial cover prices adjusted to January 2024. You can probably add another dollar or so to predict a September 2024 figure. Note that some PHBs had price increases during their print runs. And, of course, those prices are for various numbers of pages and qualities of productions.
However, on a strict inflationary price comparison, the 2024
Player's Handbook compares favorably in price only to the 2014
Player's Handbook.