Nintendo Super Mario Bros. video game sets record selling for $114,000.

[0078265317]

I know we had a previous thread like this.  But that was 100 thousand.  This is 114.  New record.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2020/07/11/video-game-sale-nes-super-mario-bros-auction-record/5420787002/

[128Kgames]

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me, honest.  I've collected a lot of things over the years, starting with comic books, but I just don't get the demand for these or why these prices.  Of course, doesn't help my wife keeps asking me "do you have any of these titles" ...

[Tanooki]

It's the circular nature of the deal worked out between WATA and Heritage Auctions.  For anyone who paid close enough attention, there is overlap on the ownership/board of directors between both parties.  HA is notable a great auction company for all sorts of goods with a stellar rep.  WATA was wanting to take over with a transparent setup to be the go to for game rating evaluation because VGA was shady as shit having no set standards and depending on who viewed it you could get a higher or lower grade (so people would game the system to go upward.)  So I don't know the details, saw it wrote up a year ago, but basically there ended up being board overlap on the two companies, and it was basically a I'll scratch your back if you scratch ours setup.  They created a way to basically and effectively get paid TWICE from the same consumer.  One was paying the fees to get a game rated and sent back with the official casing/paperwork, and twice for placement on HA auctions along with the auction fees and cuts they get for moving the goods.  It served HA well to work with WATA because the highest graded (9+ stuff) along with their deep pocketed client pool (and perspective with gamers not being so established) it made a lot of sense.  SO they took the highest rated stuff, build up a lot of hype, news coverage, other ad drops for weeks, months, leading up to that original big ass sale that did the $100K copy of SMB1.  Ever since people have been paying into the WATA works and then overturning the quality stuff through HA to make some serious back off the biggest fish.

 

It's totally legit and above board, but it is creating a new 'super' market for auctioned off high tier video games because they can rake in far more money from them as a trusted auction peddler than dealing with the dipshits at ebay and their horrid treatment of sellers at the cost of keeping buyers happy.  Down side is it's causing two issues though I've seen since then, one being that the most pristine of unsealed games because they'll grade them too are going up pretty well in price.  And worse off the sealed games that are in say 85 or better VGA level grading quality averages and better not even being cased or graded have skyrocketed to asinine levels.  A perfect example I can give a couple.  I've got two sealed games in this and above quality.  Yellow box re-release Metroid for NES, it used to be worth under $100 not being the silver original, now it's worth an average of $500 or so, a few hundred over that tops.  And then I have a sealed up minimally impacted Pokemon Red I bought for $100, was woth before this bs around $400-500 range, and now according to ebay sales it's worth $2000.  Yeah 2K...wtf!  People are paying stupid amounts to get gems like that, case, and then keep or usually sell to make some huge investment profit.

[0078265317]

16 hours ago, 128Kgames said:

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me, honest.

Me either.  If I bought one extra copy of everything back then I would be rich now.

[godslabrat]

All logic tells me this will be a brief oddity in game history.  Once the rich people get the hint that no *normal* people will pay six digits for Super Mario Bros, this will stop.  

[DragonGrafx-16]

Waiting for the day some idiot buys a sealed LJN game for 5 or 6 figures... lol

[godslabrat]

39 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Waiting for the day some idiot buys a sealed LJN game for 5 or 6 figures... lol

It's at the point where the sealed game might be worth more than the actual company.

[0078265317]

1 hour ago, godslabrat said:

It's at the point where the sealed game might be worth more than the actual company.

I hope not.

[homerhomer]

Sorry for starting a rumour but,  I bet this is a fake sell to drum up free advertising for Heritage Auctions.

After announcements like there they're going to make a killing grading SMB carts that are worthless.

[Steven Pendleton]

What happened with this MD Tetris?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TETRIS-sega-mega-drive-genesis-megadrive-md-signed-/130545774269?nma=true&si=BPpUp7%2Bd5Aa3vdS42R9neRT%2FHfk%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

I think it didn't actually sell (which is why it says it got relisted), so I wonder what ever happened to it.

[Tanooki]

Asking what he is for it is a good reason why it didn't sell, and for those into rarities having it inked up was a mistake that would hurt it as well.

[+Black_Tiger]

On 7/12/2020 at 11:32 AM, godslabrat said:

All logic tells me this will be a brief oddity in game history.  Once the rich people get the hint that no *normal* people will pay six digits for Super Mario Bros, this will stop.  

You mean like Todd McFarlane's 3 million dollar baseball?

[Tanooki]

Well I wonder if the Pokemon game impact going on now will sustain?  I know for years people hoped and prayed that Pokemon was some bs fad like beanie babies or pogs that would implode after a year or few, but be damned (for those who hate) it didn't.

 

Go fire up the old game value now website and take a peek not really so much at the common looseness of it all, but look at solid complete copies and in particular sealed games.  You want to see some money making potential if you were someone who bought stuff even 6 mo ago let alone  6 or 20 years back it's insane.  What was like a few hundred bucks sealed for some of the really old stuff is now into the thousands (new), not that the pretty high end complete copies are to snort at either.

 

Since the virus the complete copy of Red went from an average of 90 to 180, same with blue, and also yellow though the high game average is $15 less ($165.)

Now look at the RED, BLUE, and YELLOW...they're all around the $2000 mark as of June, maybe higher if another arrives?  Each has a one or two off at the $3500-4000 range which I think is anomalous at this rate, but still... whiskey tango foxtrot on that.

[Steven Pendleton]

10 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Well I wonder if the Pokemon game impact going on now will sustain?  I know for years people hoped and prayed that Pokemon was some bs fad like beanie babies or pogs that would implode after a year or few, but be damned (for those who hate) it didn't.

 

Go fire up the old game value now website and take a peek not really so much at the common looseness of it all, but look at solid complete copies and in particular sealed games.  You want to see some money making potential if you were someone who bought stuff even 6 mo ago let alone  6 or 20 years back it's insane.  What was like a few hundred bucks sealed for some of the really old stuff is now into the thousands (new), not that the pretty high end complete copies are to snort at either.

 

Since the virus the complete copy of Red went from an average of 90 to 180, same with blue, and also yellow though the high game average is $15 less ($165.)

Now look at the RED, BLUE, and YELLOW...they're all around the $2000 mark as of June, maybe higher if another arrives?  Each has a one or two off at the $3500-4000 range which I think is anomalous at this rate, but still... whiskey tango foxtrot on that.

Meanwhile, in Japan you can find them like new CIB for less than 5000 yen, and cart only for as low as 1 yen. Funny how things work out like that.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Tanooki]

5 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Meanwhile, in Japan you can find them like new CIB for less than 5000 yen, and cart only for as low as 1 yen. Funny how things work out like that.

Yeah true, mind you, they're in Japanese and no one much from around this continent would want it for that alone.  And perhaps people are a bit less predatory and frivolous with their money with sealed up old games like that too perhaps?  I would imagine if Pokemon were a platforming game all these years which reading wasn't an issue, they'd go for insane money now too due to no language barrier.

 

[0078265317]

9 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Yeah true, mind you, they're in Japanese and no one much from around this continent would want it for that alone.  And perhaps people are a bit less predatory and frivolous with their money with sealed up old games like that too perhaps?  I would imagine if Pokemon were a platforming game all these years which reading wasn't an issue, they'd go for insane money now too due to no language barrier.

 

Or maybe somebody can invent a device you stick in first and then the game.  And it translates to english.

[Steven Pendleton]

5 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Yeah true, mind you, they're in Japanese and no one much from around this continent would want it for that alone.  And perhaps people are a bit less predatory and frivolous with their money with sealed up old games like that too perhaps?  I would imagine if Pokemon were a platforming game all these years which reading wasn't an issue, they'd go for insane money now too due to no language barrier.

 

I'm guessing they printed a lot more of the Japanese versions than of the international versions, combined with the fact that most Japanese prices are more fair for every system except Mega Drive, which is crazy expensive compared to US Genesis, especially with games like Sonic & Knuckles, Comix Zone, and Vampire Killer.

 

Old Japanese Pokemon games don't use any kanji at all as far as I know, which makes them annoying to play since it's hard to read without kanji. At least, it's hard for me and Japanese people find it annoying.

[Magmavision2000]

I always wonder how copies like this exist. I find it highly unlikely that someone has had a sealed copy of SMB in pristine condition for 35 years. 

 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

1 minute ago, Magmavision2000 said:

I always wonder how copies like this exist. I find it highly unlikely that someone has had a sealed copy of SMB in pristine condition for 35 years. 

 

 

So did everyone else, which is probably why it sold for that amount. Still, you can find entire boxes of mint condition Intellivision games, and those are older.

[MrMaddog]

On 7/11/2020 at 5:41 PM, 0078265317 said:

I know we had a previous thread like this.  But that was 100 thousand.  This is 114.  New record.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2020/07/11/video-game-sale-nes-super-mario-bros-auction-record/5420787002/

Yeah I remember... Kelsey Lewin did a video back then explaining that it was a 'boxed' copy from when it was a black box launch title.  So I would imagine that the boxed copy of SMB is more rare than the ones included with later NES consoles. More like Air Raiders vs. Combat...

 

[Tanooki]

15 hours ago, 0078265317 said:

Or maybe somebody can invent a device you stick in first and then the game.  And it translates to english.

Yeah you know what I'd pay for that.  I think a lot would, you're basically speaking of the good ol Star Trek universal translator.  Currently as far as I know, the closest we have is that weird google app that uses the camera and kind of poorly translates a language into english(or whatever) on the fly but it's pretty dodgy.  Good for basic intent at best.  I've read a few people actually have done this before on video games to get by.

 

15 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I'm guessing they printed a lot more of the Japanese versions than of the international versions, combined with the fact that most Japanese prices are more fair for every system except Mega Drive, which is crazy expensive compared to US Genesis, especially with games like Sonic & Knuckles, Comix Zone, and Vampire Killer.

 

Old Japanese Pokemon games don't use any kanji at all as far as I know, which makes them annoying to play since it's hard to read without kanji. At least, it's hard for me and Japanese people find it annoying.

I wouldn't know, I wasn't talking about the Genesis, just pokemon.  And I never really dug into it, but I'd be a bit surprised if there were more copies in Japanese than english considering how wide spread the game went as it took off fairly well.  International versions, those get interesting since they tend to entirely be in english, or they're made with a spread of languages so they only have one copy on the media.  I Am Setsuna on Switch was like this, I imported a game entirely sticker/box in Japanese, but fires right up in English.  Then old stuff like year one gameboy stuff, almost all of it has just the one game that went global.  I'd think at that rate it may keep prices on the large down, well mostly down to other than maybe sticker/box preference if you wanted the entire thing.

[Video]

Why? There's literally as many of them as nes consoles. Even sealed I just don't see that.

 

Even a low production number I still don't see it, I wasn't aware carts were even numbered.

[HoshiChiri]

On 7/12/2020 at 11:32 AM, godslabrat said:

All logic tells me this will be a brief oddity in game history.  Once the rich people get the hint that no *normal* people will pay six digits for Super Mario Bros, this will stop.  

I'm not sure- I mean, normal people don't spend millions on comic books, but tell that to anyone with a nice copy of Action Comics #1.

 

I think the bigger factor is: how much will rich people care about variants? Going back to the above, Action Comics #1 is rare & worth thousands in any condition- the same is not true for Mario. There's a lot more games around, most everything that's pulled these big numbers can be had cart-only for a reasonable price. So- can someone who drops 6 figures on a rare sealed variant, get 6 figures of attention for having 'this special seal that means it was part of the New York Launch Stock?' It's not gonna look that different from a 3 figure-priced boxed copy. Plus the 10 dollar dump-bin cart will play the same. If it turns out interest is for the game itself, & not the object holding the data, then oh yeah- this bubble's gonna burst hard.

 

Maybe I should get my sealed Minish Cap graded & turn profit while I still can!?

[godslabrat]

The difference is, normal people DO want a copy of Action Comics #1.  Give a normal person a million bucks, there is a reasonable chance they will buy that comic.  But give them a choice between a graded SMB, or a rare baseball card, or a Ferrari... there's no way the average person picks the video game.

 

What point am I making?  Why am I so sure about this?  The comic book, the baseball card, and the car all have intrinsic value to people... even if you're not "into" those things, their significance and rarity is understood. What you're seeing with these sealed games is rich people trying to make money off other rich people. People who actually care about the games were left out of the conversation many zeroes ago.

 

Please don't forget... it was only a few short years ago that these ultra-common games weren't worth anything.  To go from that to "I can pay off my house with this" money is not a real trend, it's an anomaly. 
 

People will be losing their ass on graded games by the end of 2020.

[Mikebloke]

At the moment its only select things like SMB one of the most common games as jack is a baby name. One day though, this fad will extend far enough that casual collectors like me who just want to buy games to play them (God Forbid someone actually plays these things!) will struggle. I've bought a few games "new old stock" because it was cheaper than buying in worn condition, and I've always immediately opened and plugged it into a real machine. I'm a monster.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Mikebloke