Back in April, news media got bamboozled when a physical copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES sold for a whopping $660,000. Bizarrely enough, it’s no secret that some wealthy collectors will dig deep into their pockets to purchase the rarest of Pokémon cards or other limited-edition, antique items related to gaming. Yet, it appears a buyer for a Super Mario 64 cartridge was out to break this record as they acquired the Nintendo 64 classic for a mind-blowing $1.5 million.
The N64 cartridge was auctioned off through Heritage Auctions, the same popular auction house that sealed the deal for the $660k NES Super Mario Bros. If you’re curious why this particular Super Mario 64 cartridge was able to reach such a staggering price, the WATA Games had given this particular copy a 9.8 rating. For those who aren’t familiar with WATA, it is an organization that specializes in grading the quality and condition of physical copies of retro video games. For example, a score of 3 or less would mean the cartridge or packaging is dreadfully unkempt and disheveled, while a 10 would indicate the game’s in pristine, mint condition. With this in mind, the $1.5 million Super Mario 64 was claimed by Heritage Auctions to be one of the most exceedingly rare copies in such near-perfect condition.
The moral of this story — other than that some folks are insanely rich — is that if you are one of the few who own some of the antique-esque games of the past generation, you may have on yourself a costly treasure. Even if the physical copy does suffer a few blemishes or marks from wear, there’s no telling how much some “collector enthusiast” will pay to get their hands on a rare video game cartridge.
