An anonymous buyer has paid $2 million (roughly Rs. 14.84 crores) to buy an unopened copy of Super Mario Bros, a game that had become wildly popular at the turn of this century and still commands a dedicated following. The astonishing sale price of the 1985 game intended for Nintendo’s original console broke a record that was set just a month ago when a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 was auctioned for $1.56 million (roughly Rs. 11.58 crores). The latest record is the highest price paid for a video game of any title, according to collectibles website Rally.
Punks, X-Men, Declarations, and some news…
????A NEW WORLD RECORD on Rally????
…w/ the $2,000,000 sale of our 1985 Super Mario Bros., marking the HIGHEST PRICE EVER PAID for a video game of any title.
Read more in todays New York Times (cc: @nytimes): https://t.co/mJzEcVMXuQ pic.twitter.com/segsfw6Jw9
— Rally (@OnRallyRd) August 6, 2021
The record for the most expensive video games has been broken several times over the past year. In July last year, a copy of Super Mario had sold for $114,000 (Rs. 84.65 lakhs) at an auction. In November, another copy was auctioned for $156,000 (Rs. 1.15 crores). That record was broken in April this year at $660,000 (Rs. 4.90 crores).
In July this year, a copy of The Legend of Zelda fetched $870,000 (Rs. 6.45 crores).
While most games that fetched a huge price were auctioned, the sale of SuperMario 1985 took place on a slightly different system. Rally, the website, buys items and invites people to invest in shares of those items. The investors then get a say on whether to hold or sell when an offer comes for the item.
The New York Times, which first reported the record sale price, said Rally had bought the Super Mario 1985 game in April last year for $140,000 (Rs. 1.03 crores). It also reported that investors had passed on a $300,000 (Rs. 2.22 crores) offer later in 2020. A graduate student who spoke to the publication said he invested $100 (Rs. 7,423) in shares of the game and made $950 (Rs. 70,518) from the sale.
The Super Mario Bros game series, first released in the year 1985, was created by Nintendo.