BackThis 25-year-old video game sets record with $1.5 million auction of sealed copy
The auction included a sealed copy of Super Mario 64, a game that was first launched in 1996, and was amongst the most popular games of the time. It sold 5.9 million units in the United States alone, earning millions in revenue
PremiumVideo game collectors have spent a whopping $2.43 million in buying rare video games in July 2021, and in just two historic auctions. On July 9, American auction house Heritage Auctions announced that it had sold a rare copy of the game Legend of Zelda for a whopping $870,000. But the record held for a mere two days, as the auction house conducted another auction for a 25-year-old version of Mario, which went for $1.56 million.
The auction included a sealed copy of Super Mario 64, a game that was first launched in 1996, and was amongst the most popular games of the time. It sold 5.9 million units in the United States alone, earning millions in revenue. The final sale price for the game may not be surprising though, given that it was listed at an opening price of $100,000 when the sale began on July 9.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that a Super Mario title has been sold for obscene amounts of cash. Before the Legend of Zelda sale, the record for the most expensive video game auction was held by another version of Super Mario Bros, which was sold for $660,000 in April. Two other copies of the game were sold for $114,000 and $156,000 in July and November 2020, respectively.
The Super Mario name does have value in the world of gaming, given the game’s storied history. The game is developed and published by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo, which has been running it for nearly 40 years now. The first version of the game — Mario Bros — came out in 1983.
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