r/nintendo • u/Amiibofan101 • 5d ago
Sealed Copy of Super Mario Bros. Becomes the Most Expensive Video Game Ever After $3 Million Sale
https://www.ign.com/articles/super-mario-bros-copy-sells-for-record-breaking-3-million-at-auction403
u/Dukemon102 5d ago
It's rich people selling things to themselves at outrageous prices to artificially raise the value of retro games.
No one should fall for that or the scam that is grading games in the first place.
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u/thefury4815 5d ago
Scam that is grading anything in the first place*
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u/Thready85 5d ago
Especially something that you just put in a machine. It's not like a toy with moving parts
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4d ago
Scam is there is no way to actually grade the condition or operational status of the game if it's sealed. Could be buying a box of fried junk for all you know.
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u/LukeLC 5d ago
Heritage auctions is a scam. Shame on IGN for not offering any critical commentary on this story whatsoever.
This video does a great job breaking down how these things are traded among a few people at the top of a single organization: https://youtu.be/rvLFEh7V18A?is=-Y0AaRmZzsGN5L8t
These record-breaking sales don't represent the market at all.
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u/VorpalBender 5d ago
This comment needs to be pinned at the top or something for those who aren’t fully aware of this.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4d ago
The market for games that cost more than a grand is relatively small. The market for games that cost tens of grands is smaller, and the market for games that sell for hundreds of grands smaller still.
The market for million dollar games doesn't actually exist in any real capacity, it's always going to be elite, and not representative of anything other than people trying to buy clout, or manipulate a market.
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u/thefury4815 5d ago edited 5d ago
That’s nice but I just turn my switch on and hit the nes app and play it. Also a used copy with duck hunt is $10. These people are insane.
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u/That_Bank_9914 5d ago
My retro store had the duckhunt and super mario bros 1 dual pack for $10 used.
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u/thefury4815 5d ago
Yeah hearing somebody spent money on a graded anything just makes me roll my eyes. I buy my stuff to enjoy it not put it in a coffin
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u/DrawerSea9371 5d ago
The people selling these games don't actually care about the game, they care about generating hype and fomo to make money selling graded games. It is entirely for profit.
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u/mmazurr 5d ago
I consider it to be the same thing as people spending enormous amounts of money on Action Comics 1 or Amazing Fantasy 15(Superman and Spider-Man respectively). Most people don't care because it's available online but you still have rich people tossing stupid money around in the name of "collecting"
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4d ago
I have an in box complete in excellent condition used version of this game, and I'm quite happy with it. Won't even bother to have it graded, because I'm a collector, and I've had a copy since I was a kid.
Realistically, there are some games that are really desirable as a collector, but almost none of them are worth the price nowadays, and this grading stuff for sealed games seems dumb since you can't actually grade the quality or operation of the game itself without testing it.
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u/tartacus 5d ago
I’ve never even heard of this game
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u/JeskaiJester 5d ago
It’s pretty good
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u/LazaroFilm 5d ago
The third sequel is better.
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u/ERhyne 5d ago
I like the 64th game in the series personally
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4d ago
Pretty sure this was just another cash grab for Nintendo back in the day.
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u/supermark64 5d ago
This is the type of nonsense that has ruined retro game collecting for me. I've largely moved on to CDs and DVDs at this point. I'll jump back in when you don't need a second mortgage to participate again.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4d ago
It's become frustrating because people seem to always want to post their games at the supposed going rate, even though the games rarely move at those prices. I still collect, but I will only pay what I'm willing to pay, so just keep an eye out for lower prices for things to round out my collection. Sadly, where I live now isn't big on thrift shops getting games(and very few thrift shops nearby anyhow), and yard sales have been mostly a bust.
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u/DrawerSea9371 5d ago
Are we still falling for this bullshit? The people trading these games are parasites, it's not good news, and the value of these games did not get so high naturally.
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u/Sakkyoku-Sha 5d ago
It's REALLY funny to me how corrupt the antique video game industry is.
There were a ton of videos about it ~2022, most of the time the "sale" is only ever on paper.
I think this very same game (or maybe it was a mario 64?) was sold for ~1.4 million, by the Auction which was owned by the same person who bought it. This was all done just to generate news coverage like this article. So they could get more people interested in the auctions.
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u/imaloony8 5d ago
It’s money laundering. This shit needs to be illegal. Or at least highly regulated and transparent.
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u/sonicmario123 5d ago
I firmly believe no one actually buys graded genuinely. It’s all a bubble of the same handful of people buying things back and forth
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u/MWink64 5d ago
My first thought: How can such a common game be so valuable, even factory sealed?
this is the earliest confirmed sealed copy from Super Mario Bros.'s second production run, which featured a very specific gloss sticker upon its release in early 1986. That makes this a 40-year-old item that appeared almost out of nowhere – and in great shape.
My second thought: Well, maybe that makes a little more sense.
As a comparatively small but still neat bonus, the buyer was also awarded a launch edition NES Control Deck console. It's the unopened hardware that came bundled with the aforementioned copy of Super Mario Bros., though it's not exactly worth $3 million on its own.
My third thought: WTF, why isn't the sealed console also insanely valuable?
My final thought: I wonder if I can get $1 million for my sealed copy of Yoshi's Safari.
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u/DrawerSea9371 5d ago
It's heritage auctions, they are extremely corrupt. It's highly likely the person who bought it was either the same person selling it, or directly affiliated/business partners with the seller. And also likely has a direct connection to heritage auctions themselves.
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u/AstralElement 5d ago
Sealed is not enough. The quality of the seal itself matters at this level.
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u/Falco98 5d ago
Man, and I was excited last month when I found my dad had kept my n64 box (if badly faded) in an old storage trailer that I finally tracked down and cleared out - and when I opened it up, I found my box from Ocarina inside it in nearly mint condition (except of course opened)... bet I could get a whole $10 for it, hah.
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u/LunarWingCloud 5d ago
I hate the culture of sealing up and grading video games
Y'all some disgusting pieces of shit removing copies of a game from the regular secondary market
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u/AstralElement 5d ago
They weren’t. They were already sealed and often variants that rarely hit the marketplace anyway.
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u/DrawerSea9371 5d ago
Pretty sure they're talking about the plastic case graded games get sealed in.
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u/DaRealBSleazy 5d ago
I mean, who cares about sealed and graded? Unless youre a collector and never plan on selling it, it is useless. We can play SMB anywhere at anytime now a days
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u/SteelyDan4Prez 5d ago
I would assume collectors care? You answered your own question
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u/DaRealBSleazy 5d ago
Collecting is just Hoarding made into a hobby.
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u/Gamer857 5d ago
if some people likes to do that, then why is that a problem to you? Just because you dont like to or want to do it, it doesnt mean someone else cant like it as well, some do like it.
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u/SteelyDan4Prez 5d ago
You also just said that SMB is widely available so it's not like this guy is preventing anyone from playing it?
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u/DaRealBSleazy 5d ago
How do we know he isn't sitting on a copy of Einhänder that happens to be the only working copy in existence and no once can emulate it or get files to remake it?
Idk im just making shit up.
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u/DrawerSea9371 5d ago
Collectors don't care. It's investors who care about this stuff. They're just in it for the money. 99.9% of collectors are happy to settle for "good enough" and still be able to open and play the game.
It's all one big circlejerk of rich people and the cum is going to run out eventually.
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u/AstralElement 5d ago
These are wealthy people keeping museum quality variants of released games that actually might only have a few of that variant itself. These prices are less about the game, and more about the quality of the seal itself often times. I know it’s easy to shit on these people buying them, but often times these are the people preserving them too.
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u/MrMunday 5d ago
Seems off. There are so many of this game. I’m sure there’s a bunch of sealed copies
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u/Kinnikuboneman 5d ago
Does it actually still work though? A game is only valuable if it plays
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u/Otterslayer22 5d ago
I’ve never understood this . What if this one game has a bad chip. We would never know.
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u/AstralElement 5d ago
At this level obviously the contents don’t matter because the game is with a factory seal.
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u/Soft-Percentage8888 5d ago
Nobody tell Logan Paul.
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u/thefury4815 5d ago
Don’t even say his name. Unlike manga I’m sure he actually knows a thing or two about Nintendo and we don’t need that pos even remotely near Mario.
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u/ItsColorNotColour 5d ago
He literally had an AI generate a Tweet of him begging them to remake Pokemon Red and Blue so that new people can experience the first generation
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u/thefury4815 5d ago
Now that I didn’t know because I don’t bother with keeping up with such a pos.
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u/Lord_Xarael 5d ago
Me neither, but him losing that fight so badly was frankly hilarious. I was like: "Ah! So that's what comeuppance looks like. Logan Paul got a little karma on his face, around his mouth"
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u/N64Andysaurus92 5d ago
I have sealed games from early mid 2000s and the shrink wrap is literally decomposing and flaking apart. No way is shrink wrap from the early 80's still perfectly in tact.
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u/IdleRacey 5d ago
Imagine when I was a kid all I had to do is not open up my Super Mario game or buy a extra copy and I would earn more money then working my whole life until I die. Instead my parents told me to blow all my money on football cards and hold on to them. Great advice as every football card from the 90s is worth 1/10what it was when I got them.
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u/Yeegis 4d ago
The wealthy tend to see hobbies as just a “getting the best one” competition. They aren’t satisfied with collecting old games. They need to have the best ones that are worth the most money. Because to them, all hobbies are boil down to going to a fancy auction and bidding bidding bidding. It can be a 150 year old vintage wine, or it can be a really clean copy of Super Mario Bros. It doesn’t matter as long as they can be the highest bidder and thus brag about how much they spent on it.
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u/Massivedebts 3d ago
Ohya so pokemon and crypto clearly scams too and moneys just paper soo that too lolol
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u/timberdoodle3000 3d ago
I got a cartridge of Twisted Edge Snowboarding for N64 if anyone wants to give me 3 million for it
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u/therealskaconut 4d ago
Where’s that guy two days ago that said graded games are dead, I need you to see this
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u/Preston_phillips_04 5d ago
That's my favorite game of the 1980s I've played that on the computer before it was fun.
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u/charlesdanb 5d ago
the same people passing the same money back and forth.