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NES World Championship cart auction ignites sales rush
Last week a tremendously rare Nintendo World Championship cartridge appeared on eBay, immediately sparking a bidding frenzy. Despite its torn label and crude ink scrawl reading "Mario," the auction has now ended at a top bid of $99,902. While that number is impressive, you should always view any eBay auction with such an astronomically high final bid as suspect until cash has exchanged hands. There are even reports from users on the Nintendo Age forums that the winning bidder has already retracted his offer. Normally that would be the end of this story, but that massive price point has drawn a number of other Nintendo World Championship cartridges out of hiding. As Ars Technica reports, one such cartridge in even better condition than the torn label cart on eBay went for $17,500 only yesterday. Two more cartridges, one gray and one gold, are currently racking up bids on the auction site. The former stands at $10,100 with five days remaining in its auction, while the latter has attracted $33,600 with eight days to go. That's a surprisingly large number of cartridges to simultaneously hit eBay, given that only 116 World Championship cartridges are known to exist. As a result, collectors are beginning to suspect that there may be more World Championship cartridges in the wild than previously thought. The rules of supply and demand dictate that this should lower the price of future auctions, but as Price Charting points out, that questionable $99,902 bid for the torn label cartridge may instill in the public the idea that World Championship cartridges are worth nearly $100,000, artificially boosting the game's value. Update: Destructoid contacted the seller of the torn label cartridge who confirms the aforementioned reports that the winning bidder has backed out. [Image: eBay]
1 of the 116 copies of Nintendo World Championship is up on eBay
A copy of rarest-of-the-rare NES game Nintendo World Championship is going for sale on eBay, and despite it having a ripped label and "Mario" written on it in ballpoint pen, the current highest bid is a whopping $5,500. That's because the cartridge is one of only 116 made for the 1990 nationwide NES tournament of the same name - and far fewer of those 116 are even accounted for. It's a game that's popped up on auctions before: One went for $15,000 several years ago. If you think that's crazy money, we'll raise you to $33,433.30; that's how much a complete-as-complete-can-be edition of Air Raid, an Atari 2600 rarity, went for 14 months ago. [Image Source: muresan on eBay]
These old Nintendo promo videos are a national treasure
A collector of gaming antiquities has provided an incredible public service to the world, by uploading six extremely rare, extremely retro Nintendo corporate promotional tapes to YouTube. The six videos (above and after the break) were originally used as sales pitches to promote various products and live events, such as the Super Game Boy and the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, to retailers and potential venues.Beyond their value as hilarious distractions, however, these blurry, color-smeared glimpses into the past also serve as a reminder of our community's history -- one that must be preserved and cherished, so that our children may one day know how completely ridiculous everything was in the early 90s.Their tiny, adorable faces will look up and ask "Daddy, why are there day-glo pink triangles all over everything in these 'video tapes'?" To which we'll reply, "Hush, sweetie. Eat your gruel before Ag'rathas and his Labor Wardens start our next shift, here in the Salt Mines of Kuu'uultepth, which is in space because this is humanity's bleak future as a conquered people."
Man chats about his $15k NES game
James Baker collects games, but probably not in the same way that any of us collect games. Baker recently coughed up $15,000 for one of the 26 gold-colored NES carts that were originally manufactured for the Nintendo World Championships in 1990 (only twelve are still accounted for) -- in fact, we're fairly certain that his is the cart we posted about recently.Speaking to Edge about his latest acquisition, Baker confesses that spending so much on a single videogame is "pretty crazy," but also says that he "doesn't really see it purely as a videogame."Not only is the guy richer than us, he's also a lot braver -- when he received the cart, he popped it into his NES to give it a go! "I didn't even need to blow on the end of it to get it to work," he said, nonchalantly. You better believe that playing such a game would be the last thing on our minds. Instead, we'd be handling it very delicately, and then only after washing our hands several times over.(Fun fact: $15,000 would cover the cost of 1.5m Wii Points, which in turn could be used to purchase the whole of the current U.S. Virtual Console line-up -- more than ten times over.)
Rare NES game selling for 12k makes us wish we had money
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Rare_NES_game_selling_for_12k'; In your travels, you may have heard of the "holy grail" of video games. This rare NES game, known as Nintendo World Championships 1990, has only 116 copies in circulation. Now it seems that the owner of one of these carts has done what any other red-blooded capitalist would do, and put it up for sale on Ebay. The asking price? $12,000. There's also a "best offer" option, but the seller says he (or she) will not be budging much on the price.This game is a must-have for the serious game collector, certainly, but we don't imagine too many folks have $12,000 to throw around. And, if by any chance you do, consider buying us something nice for steering you in the right direction, m'kay?[Via Technabob]
