The nes is hoeky to the max, and its not just because it was 1983, it was hoeky for 1983 standards. Nintendo were cheap as cheap and it shows in every aspect.
No BCD because then it would cost more, but even then they technically broke the law and if Commodore found out in time, would have pulled in a hefty fee. Would have probably been enough to finish the LCD and C900 to which we could probably be using Commodores and not Apples today.
2K of RAM, maskable non maskable interrupt.. when the IRQ basically doesn't do very much and audio, particularly samples are very time critical and having them on NMI would make more sense. 8x8 sprites? with a limit of 8 on a line - ugh... Timers who needs Timers... Raster counter meh.... drawing sprites up the edge of the screen on the right boring. The write to this registers and it sets an internal latch so then you can write to it again to set the other half... look spend the extra 0.001c and add the gate for a 2nd register...
So 1983 what do we have.
Well to be fair a NES is better than all the Apple][s bar the GS in terms of capabilities in video games.
Compared the 2600VCS it is a fancy drink on a beach with a dedicated fan boy.
Its better than the P.E.T of 77 and the TRS-80 of 77
Atari 800s - 79 - bitmaps, timers, decent sound chip, 48K ram, built in software, raster counters, expansion ports, higher resolution
VIC-20 of 80~1 with 5K of ram, NES has more colours and sprites and audio channels, but VIC-20 has keyboard, timers and more RAM. And Vic-20 was 1/3 the price.
ColecoVision of 82 getting about square
C64 of 82 - bitmaps, larger sprites, timers, decent sound chip, 64K ram, built in software, raster counters, expansion ports, higher resolution
But the C64 cost more in 83 than the NES did. However by 85 when it hit states side, it was about even if not cheaper. And in 85 we had C128s and A1000s. In 83 the A800s were $165
I fell that Nintendo should have "refreshed" the NES in 85 for the US launch and added in more things to bring it more up to date, having proven the model in Japan for 2 years first. Not that it seems to have mattered for some reason the US jumped on to it. My guess is piracy issues.
But to answer the original post - because Japan was a backwater in 83, that was still crippled from the war - recovering but still gut punched, there was no money, so every single yen counted. So they made it as cheap as possible to sell it as cheap as possible to survive.