A 25-year-old Nintendo game breaks all records: the “Super Mario 64” cassette in its original packaging was auctioned for more than 1,560,000 dollars.
“Super Mario 64” is a cult game from Nintendo from 1996. At that time, you had to pay around 100 dollars for such a game cartridge. Now one copy has been sold for multiple. A particularly well-preserved version of the game in its original packaging was auctioned on Heritageauctions.com for $ 1.56 million.
The question arises: why? The game is not rare. The 3D game was sold a total of almost twelve million times. It was the most popular game ever for the Nintendo 64 console – even before “Mario Kart”. The answer lies in the condition of the item. It achieves a value of 9.8 out of 10 possible points on the so-called Wata scale. The scale is used to assess the state of games with a collective value.
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«Breathtaking state»
According to the experts, the “Super Mario 64” game is one of five original boxed cartridges in the world in a similarly good condition. However, none of these copies performed as well as the copy that has now been sold. The experts write: “The cultural significance of the title and its importance for the history of video games is enormous and the condition of this copy is simply breathtaking.”
It is not clear who spent more than $ 1.5 million on the game. Heritageauctions.com does not name any names for data protection reasons. What is certain is that no other game has changed hands for such a high amount. It wasn’t until July 9, 2021, that the original packaging of “The Legend of Zelda” was sold for the Nintendo Entertainment System for $ 870,000. The old record only lasted for 48 hours. The previous record was held by a well-preserved copy of the game “Super Mario Bros”, which sold for $ 660,000 in early April.
Trading cards and NFTs
The prices for games, but also other generic articles, have skyrocketed in the last few months. For example, huge sums of money are paid for Pokémon cards. Not only physical but also virtual collectables have been popular in recent months. These so-called NFTs of memes or art have made millions.
