Jump to content

'Super-rare' Nintendo Game


Monroe

Recommended Posts

I was going to put this in the General Discussion forum but it is gaming news. I have a mint older Nintendo and a bunch of games but not this one. Only 116 copies were made so it's not in my collection but someone may have one in a box of "old" game cartridges sitting in a closet or somewhere.

'Super-rare' Nintendo game hits eBay

24 January 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25878678

An extremely rare Nintendo game is expected to fetch thousands of dollars in an eBay auction.

Only 116 copies of Nintendo World Championships were ever made, as part of a special event in 1990.

The first bid came in at $4,999 (£3,000), but the game is likely to fetch more, one Nintendo expert said.

Unfortunately for collectors, the cartridge is in poor condition - with a ripped label and "Mario" written on it in ballpoint pen.

"This is quite unfortunate but happened many decades ago," explained the seller in his description of the "super-rare" item, adding that whoever wrote on the label did not have "a clue what they actually had".

Scratched Ferrari

Created for the Nintendo Entertainment System - better known as NES - Nintendo World Championships was designed for a competition, and never went on general sale.

The game features shortened versions of three classics - Super Mario, Tetris and Rad Racer.

Competition entrants were given six minutes to amass points on the games, with whoever came top winning a trophy, a trip to Universal Studios and various other prizes. A detailed history of the contest and its winners can be found on Wikipedia.

Each of the 90 semi-finalists was given a grey cartridge like the one now up for auction.

Rarer still are the "golden" cartridges of the same game, sent out as part of a separate competition by Nintendo Power magazine.

Genuine copies of the game are hard to come by, and so the poor condition would not be too much of a deterrent to keen collectors, predicted Chris Scullion, games editor for Computer and Video Games.

"It's like finding the rarest Ferrari but with a scratch - you'd still buy it.

"They are considered the holy grail among Nintendo collectors."

In 2011, the same game sold at a charity auction for $11,000 (£6,600) - but it was in better condition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Well, this is kinda old news. The only reason a person would pay any money is just to own this as a lot. Like having the entire collection. The initial game itself, was repackaged and resold to consumers, with some other game titles. Thus the reason so few of these were ever made. It is one of the few NES games that works with a floor mat device ( Simular to DDR ) I believe. I wouldn't go for it, eventually all turns. Even my computers from over ten years ago, are starting to act funny.

Edited by ROTS
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, this is kinda old news. The only reason a person would pay any money is just to own this as a lot. Like having the entire collection. The initial game itself, was repackaged and resold to consumers, with some other game titles. Thus the reason so few of these were ever made. It is one of the few NES games that works with a floor mat device ( Simular to DDR ) I believe. I wouldn't go for it, eventually all turns. Even my computers from over ten years ago, are starting to act funny.

Yes that's why I'm glad I can buy reprints of the Mona Lisa, they're soooooo much better than the original.

Plus the new "created" diamonds are so much better than real natural ones.

I have one of the rarest snes games released in very good condition and understand the personal satisfaction from simply having it in a case on a shelf. (Plus I played the hell out of it, it was one of the favorite games of my wife and I)

For the curious here is a ebay auction for the same game in the condition I have:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Earthbound-Super-Nintendo-SNES-Complete-Box-Inserts-Stickers-/261382330930?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item3cdb99da32

Edited by Kelsenellenelvian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah that World Championships cart from last week... It was collectively agreed that it has been the one in the worst condition to appear so far. Not counting that one that got VGA graded (and other recent finds) at least the seller put tape over the eproms.

And Earthbound has a problem and that is the amount of bootlegs that have entered the market in recent years.

You may say that World Championships is the rarest, but the only reason people say this is because of the price. There are far more uncommon games that don't get the same hype because they don't go for so much money. That, and for some reason, Nintendo fans have inflated the market and get all the attention. For example, the Sega Genesis has a competition cart too and even less were made than the NES ones.

http://www.sega-16.com/2013/02/sega-ages-blockbuster-video-world-game-championship-ii/

Hearing about the NES cart is boring now, it seems one pops up every year or two. Maybe a dozen have entered the market in the past ten years and some website makes a big deal about it every time. I can't figure it out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well the World Championship game price was news too me ... been out of the gaming loop for awhile. I didn't know about Earthbound also ... that's not chump change.

My NES system is from 1988 ... The Action Set, retailing in 1988 for US$149.99, came with the Control Deck, two game controllers, an NES Zapper and a dual Game Pak containing both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.

Went to a Play Station 2 and probably won't get past that ... darn games are too hard with that setup ... liked Tomb Raider and can get pretty far with it.

...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...