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Sealed Super Mario 64 sells for more than $1.5 million, almost doubling a record just set on Friday

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

On Friday, when I wrote about how a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES sold for an eye-popping $870,000 at auction and set a new record for the most expensive video game ever sold, I wondered which game would be the first to sell for more than a million. Just two days later, I have my answer: a sealed copy of the Nintendo 64 classic Super Mario 64 sold for an astonishing $1,560,000 at Heritage Auctions on Sunday, smashing the record that had just been claimed by The Legend of Zelda.

Over the past 12 months, the record for the most expensive video game ever has risen dramatically. Here’s the timeline of the record, as far as I am aware:

  • July 10th, 2020: copy of Super Mario Bros. sells for $114,000
  • November 23rd, 2020: copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 sells for $156,000
  • April 2nd, 2021: copy of Super Mario Bros. sells for $660,000
  • July 9th, 2021: copy of The Legend of Zelda sells for $870,000
  • July 11th, 2021: copy of Super Mario 64 sells for $1,560,000
Screen_Shot_2021_07_11_at_11.13.11_AM.0.png
 

Moonjt9

Member
Heritage auctions is a huge scheme of the same collectors buying and selling shit between them to pump up prices and manufacture hype. Such a scam. There’s a reason these crazy numbers only come from their auctions and nowhere else.
My post from the Zelda thread the other day. I think this latest news proves my point pretty well.
 

Hum

Neo Member
The fact that you can get authentic N64 box replacements and that particular boxart is easily available.


Is hilarious
I think I might start a new business 🤔
Yes, that's exactly what I thought when I heard about this.
How can you distinguish between an authentic copy from when it was released, and something someone just printed out, and puts shrink wrap around?
 

Yoboman

Member
Yes, that's exactly what I thought when I heard about this.
How can you distinguish between an authentic copy from when it was released, and something someone just printed out, and puts shrink wrap around?
Same way they do with baseball cards and any other collectable
 
I dont get it. Its one of the most wide spread N64 games out there. Just because its sealed its worth 1.5 mil? Also, people crazy enough to buy this they will never open it, so inside could be a blank cartridge for weight distribution and a replicated box. On a mass scale, sure it would be noticeable. but are you telling me its impossible for one guy to have a badass printer or work at some big printing shop and gets ahold of the wrapping mechanism from the 90s (in case someone wants to say its not sealed like they did em before)? I find that way more plausible than someone actually paying 1.5 mil for a totally UNrare game.

Nintendo World Championship which is an actual rare, collectors item, some would say holy grail didnt even sell for 1/10th of that.
 
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BigBooper

Member
I dont get it. Its one of the most wide spread N64 games out there. Just because its sealed its worth 1.5 mil? Also, people crazy enough to buy this they will never open it, so inside could be a blank cartridge for weight distribution and a replicated box. On a mass scale, sure it would be noticeable. but are you telling me its impossible for one guy to have a badass printer or work at some big printing shop and gets ahold of the wrapping mechanism from the 90s (in case someone wants to say its not sealed like they did em before)? I find that way more plausible than someone actually paying 1.5 mil for a totally UNrare game.

Nintendo World Championship which is an actual rare, collectors item, some would say holy grail didnt even sell for 1/10th of that.
You trying to figure out a logical reason for it to sell for 1.5mil? There isn't one. People have the money and they offered the money, no logic required.
 

Hum

Neo Member
Same way they do with baseball cards and any other collectable
I don't know, from what I read just now, it doesn't look like most things they look at for baseball cards would apply here.
The only thing that does is the printing quality. Where there's usually a difference in the printing process for older cards, compared to modern methods.

Not sure if that would be as much of a factor in this case.
 

Trimesh

Banned
Well, the previous one of these absolutely stunk - the buyers, seller, grading company (WATA) and the auction house (HA) are all full of people that know each other. This is almost certainly more of the same shit.

Edit:

Oh, and incidentally these are also the same bunch of people that bought Nintendo Age and deleted the historical sales price data.
 
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PSYGN

Member
The fact that you can get authentic N64 box replacements and that particular boxart is easily available.
il_570xN.2411241589_kgfj.jpg

il_794xN.2411241015_fxkz.jpg

Is hilarious
I think I might start a new business 🤔

That boxart still looks good to this day. It always stood out for me in front of the wall of games.
 

TheAssist

Member
So money laundry is what you are saying?

Same shit that happened in arts and NFT's and lots of other collectibles.

Spend your hot money on some random shit and when you need clean money you just sell it to the next money launderer.
 

Impotaku

Member
Yeaaaaaah, wanna see them receipts of it actually selling as i'm calling suspicious bullshit on all these sales. Super common game that sold million even a sealed copy isn't that hard to find.
 

UnNamed

Banned
One of a kind Nintendo Play Station sold at 300k.
Not rare SM64 sold at 1.5M.

Yes, something shady behind this moves.
 

Stuart360

Member
Is this becoming some kind of 'rich mans meme' or something?. Why Super Mario 64?, is it even that rare?. I bet there are quite a few sealed copies lying around, probably loads in Nintendo's back offices lol.
 

Fredrik

Member
I am not saying a sealed copy of FIFA 21 will be worth something in 20 years. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
...but maybe something else. Who would have thought that Mario 64 would sell for 1.5 million back then?
It’s 20 years though… I mean I don’t know how old you are but in 20 years I’ll be 65
Delete Old Man GIF


Nope I think that train has already left the station for me. Missed the crypto mining train as well. Never gonna be a millionaire but I’m honestly happy enough that I didn’t sleep on the stock market too, I’m at least self funding my whole gaming hobby with stock investments.
 
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S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
It’s 20 years though… I mean I don’t know how old you are but in 20 years I’ll be 65
Delete Old Man GIF


Nope I think that train has already left the station for me. Missed the crypto mining train as well. Never gonna be a millionaire but I’m honestly happy enough that I didn’t sleep on the stock market too, I’m at least self funding my whole gaming hobby with stock investments.
I would be 45. I am obviously not putting all my eggs into one basket, but if I feel like a game could be valuable one day or if I got 2 copies laying around, then I think it's worth a try. There is not much to lose.
 

Lupin3

Targeting terrorists with a D-Pad
Yeah, it smells pretty bad. And how do you even verify the authenticity of these games if the auction is legit?
 
Even though Mario 64 is pretty common, It is pretty rare to find a sealed copy. Still, this is bit too much and artificially inflates the retro gaming market.
 
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The fact that you can get authentic N64 box replacements and that particular boxart is easily available.
il_570xN.2411241589_kgfj.jpg

il_794xN.2411241015_fxkz.jpg

Is hilarious
I think I might start a new business 🤔
Look I'm not trying to suggest that Super Mario 64 is worth $1.5m but replacement shit is never exactly the same. There's a texture change, the colors are off, it doesn't have that smell from new game prints, it doesn't have history. I'm not a collector, too broke for that shit, but I can definitely appreciate the idea of holding an actual original print copy of a game from decades ago. It's a piece of history. Artificial recreations don't hold that same power.

I'm also of the opinion that we return to the void when we die and leave all of our worldly possessions behind, making this kind of obsessive compulsiveness extremely unhealthy and wasteful, but oh well whatever, everyone has to live their own lives and decide what's worthwhile to them.
 
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