A copy of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System has sold for over 3 million dollars at auction, officially making it the most expensive video game of all time in terms of a single copy sold.
Like with comic books and trading cards in the past, there has been a growing interest in older video games being sold at high prices at auction. The main difference with video games is how popular the big franchises were. No one expected Action Comics #1 to be worth anything in 1938, but old NES and SNES games sold millions of copies worldwide, meaning they’re really easy to purchase for cheap.
Super Mario Bros. Sells For $3 Million At Auction
Mario has earned a new accolade in the gaming world, as a copy of Super Mario Bros. just broke a massive record. According to Heritage Auctions, a recently discovered copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES sold at auction for $3 million, as it is the earliest known version of the game.
The copy of Super Mario Bros. has been graded 9.6 A++ quality. This was due to its being found in an NES Control Deck set from the Los Angeles test market run, which explains its amazing quality, as neither had been opened. It’s believed this copy came from Super Mario Bros.‘s second production run, making it the oldest copy to be this high quality.
The Control Deck is the term Nintendo used for the NES early on, back when it was obfuscating the system’s purpose after the video game crash of 1983. The same Control Deck that contained the Super Mario Bros. cartridge was also included in the sale.
How Legitimate Is The Super Mario Bros. Sale?
There’s no denying that the Super Mario Bros. cartridge is valuable from a collection standpoint, owing to its age, quality, and historical value. However, $3 million is an astronomical figure, and it has raised eyebrows on Reddit regarding the sale’s legitimacy. It was only a few years ago that YouTuber Karl Jobst began investigating fraud and deception in the retro gaming market, accusing companies of colluding to inflate the value of items artificially.
There are plenty of rare video games that had limited print runs and are valuable as a result, but they tend to belong to niche franchises or were only released in Japan. The Mario name carries weight, however, and is recognizable to casual collectors. There aren’t many Super Mario Bros. games that could be considered rare, so any multi-million dollar sales are being met with suspicion, even for something as old and well-kept as the copy that was just sold.
Super Mario Bros.
- Released
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November 17, 1985
- ESRB
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E For Everyone
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo R&D4
- Franchise
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Super Mario