Alternative assets have been getting a lot of play recently, led by sports cards and memorabilia. But sealed video games are having their moment, too.
On Friday, a sealed copy of a Nintendo Super Mario Bros. game, graded as a pristine copy by video game grading company Wata, sold for $660,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. That marks the highest sale price for a video game ever publicly recorded, shattering the previous record of $156,000.
A copy of the game released later had set the video game record when it sold seven months prior to fractional marketplace Rally for $140,000. Rally had set the current value for that game at $216,000. It's next trading window will come in two weeks.
Video games were obviously meant to be played and never meant to be collectible, but that's one of the reason why sealed copies have been drawing so much attention. Who wouldn't have opened a game and who would have kept it sealed?
Wata doesn't yet release population reports on the number of a particular video game it has graded, but the population of sealed games is believed to be infinitesimal compared to some of the rarest sports cards.
For example, there's less than 320 Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer Rookie cards graded by PSA as Gem Mint 10, but some of the rarest games, at least in a sealed state, haven't even been graded 30 times.
Wata grades sealed games by the quality of the seal and the box and notes particulars about the printing and the game itself. Complete in-box video games are also being collected by the masses. Complete in-box include the cartridge, the manual and the box, but have less value because they are opened.
Heritage sold other games on Friday for big bucks. A sealed copy of Megaman sold for $144,000. A sealed version of Super Mario Bros. 3 sold for $52,000 and a sealed version of Final Fantasy II sold for $50,400.
A sealed red Gameboy version of Pokemon sold for $72,000 and a sealed version of Mike Tyson's Punchout sold for $102,000.
