3 sells for a then-record $156,000 because of Mario’s handĪ few months later, Mario was at it again. Each sub-variant.produced within that time frame had a production period of just a few months. being the “3 Code” variant) that were produced within the span of one year. Heritage Auctions explained the significance of such tabs:Ĭardboard hangtabs were originally used on the US test market copies of black box games, back before plastic was used to seal each game.There are four sub-variants of the plastic sealed cardboard hangtab box (this particular copy of Super Mario Bros. But why was this copy so valuable? Oh, don’t worry, it’s for a very important reason. showed up at auction sporting a 9.4 A+ Wata rating, and ultimately selling for $114,000, eclipsing still another copy of Super Mario Bros. The explosion started when a different copy of Super Mario Bros. July 2020: A different copy of Super Mario Bros. There’s always a bigger fish.īut how did we get to such a ridiculous number so quickly? While it does seem plausible that a pristine copy of the original Mario title, which garnered a whopping “9.8 A+ rating” on the Wata Scale, might be as valuable a game as there ever will be, it is probably a bit foolhardy to think no one will ever pay more. In about a year’s time, we have seen the title for Most Expensive Game Ever Sold change hands five times, though it’s almost always Mario absconding with the hardware in some form or another.
Given the nature of the industry, these records have a tendency to change often (which you will see below).
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RELATED: HBO's 'The Last of Us' TV Series May Be Among the Most Expensive Shows Ever Made I will just save my $9.99 for 200,000 months and I’ll be ready to buy! sold for $2 million at auction, becoming the most expensive video game ever sold, and I felt like a loser. Then, a pristine, sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros. Such a small sum of money doesn’t matter a lot, but it does register on budgets like mine. I felt responsible when I decided to save the $9.99. While a combined $20 monthly charge isn’t a deal-breaking proposition, when you don’t rein in your subscriptions (Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Xbox Game Pass, etc.), you suddenly have twelve active and you’re paying $150 per month for more content than you could possibly consume. I use it, sure, but I also have PlayStation Plus, another $9.99 monthly fee, so I occasionally duck out of the former for a few months at a time. I woke up the other day and realized my PlayStation Now subscription was about to lapse.