nintendo world championships
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CBS will air the Nintendo World Championships starting August 25th
CBS is set to air the Nintendo World Championships later this month. The trio of esports tournaments -- in which Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players duked it out -- will debut on August 25th at 1 PM ET. The network will broadcast two more episodes on September 7th at 2 PM and September 14th at 1:30 PM.
Daily Roundup: Getting to know Xbox's Phil Spencer, Nintendo's rarest game and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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]
Rare NES game sells for nearly $100,000, even rarer one appears online
Remember the ratty copy of Nintendo World Championships that popped up on eBay earlier this week? After a fast and furious auction, the ultra-rare cartridge sold for a staggering $99,902. Naturally, such eye-watering figures have prompted two more collectors to sell their prized possessions online. First up, there's a mint-condition grey edition with an intact label, but if you're not fussed about stickers, then there's the even rarer gold edition up for grabs. Considering that only 26 of the 116 cartridges were gold, produced specifically for Nintendo Power prize winners, it's an even rarer find for the 8-bit enthusiast. If you missed out on a chance to bid for the original and want a do-over, then perhaps this is your lucky day. [Image credit: mtnlife, eBay] [Thanks, Danny]
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]
One of the rarest games in the world just landed on eBay
If you'd seen this ratty-looking NES cartridge at a yard sale, you'd be forgiven for not giving it a second glance. If you'd paid a few bucks to take it home, however, then congratulations: you just won the admiration of every gamer in the world. The 1990 Nintendo World Championship toured the US with a custom game that asked players to beat levels from Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer and Tetris in less than seven minutes. Just 116 of these carts were produced, each one going to finalists and competition winners -- making it one of the rarest Nintendo titles ever made. Now, this not-so-gorgeous-looking copy, where some misguided fool decided that scrawling "Mario" in ballpoint was an adequate replacement for the torn label, is available on eBay. The starting price is $5,000, less than half of the $11,500 someone paid for one in 2011, but you'd better hurry up and sell those organs, as the auction's due to finish in less than 48 hours. [Image credit: mursean, eBay ]
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]
