Random: Toys R Us Employee Finds A Mario Kart 64 Box Hidden Under A Shelf

Wow, what an awesome find! It's like a time capsule from the past. It would be something if there really was an in-tact cartridge inside. Amazing this went undiscovered for 20+ years and likely would have remained that way if Toys R Us hadn't shut down.

I always threw the cardboard boxes away and just kept the manual. Thats why i preferred Sega back in the day, with the plastic boxes

I'd love to clean that box and stick it on my shelf. Although double dash was my favourite, Mario Kart 64 was the original and quite an amazing game when I first played it.

Edit: To clarify, I meant that Mario Kart 64 was the first Mario Kart game that I played NOT that it was the first Mario Kart game ever made. My apologies for the lack of clarity but I wrote this post in the morning before work so..yeah, lol

They should have hired better cleaning crew over the last 20 years...

@Findonovan95 Super was the original my good man. 64 is the second (third almost, if the virtual boy one hadnt been cancelled) entry in the series.

when I was clearing up my Smiths store I found a guide for Mario 64 under the racking in the storeroom, sadly it was unsalvageable as decades of damp had largely turned it to mould.

@Bunkerneath

I was the same back in the SNES / N64 days, I used to throw the boxes away and keep the cartridges in a drawer under the console.

I still have all of the games (or most of them) but in hindsight I wish I'd kept all the boxes as they'd be worth a small fortune now if kept in decent condition.

Of course as an 11 year old you don't think about things like that at the time

@Bunkerneath Yeah, I'm with ya. Wish I kept every single one of them though. Genesis was the greatest for their boxes that's for sure. Snapping them in there and setting on my shelf was nice.

Man, a complete box+cart+manual set in mint condition is already $200+ on eBay. Factory sealed has GOT to be worth a small fortune.

Roll on Polymega, with any luck they'll announce a N64 module and we can go back to the halcyon days.

Lol nice, put in on ebay (unopened) Ancient mario kart box, with ancient dust from toys r us. 🤣

That says a lot about the cleaning staff they've been hiring

@Findonovan95
No, Mario Kart 64 was the second in the series.

I wish I was that employee. Then again, I would be out of a job. 😕

@Bunkerneath @Marios-love-child I did the same thing, wish I kept the boxes. Still have my N64 cartridges and they still work...man those things are durable!

@Samasaurus My first Snes still works to this day. If there is one great I can say about Nintendo. Their products last for long time

it was a Mom and Pop liquididation store that was closed for 15 years in the story I read, now its a Toys r Us and it was under the shelf?

This taps into the secret fantasy I used to have as a kid of going into abandoned old toy stores years after they close, and finding toys hidden away. The TRU store that closed in my town last week still has the doorway to the storage room you used to have to take your ticket to get your games. Now I'm imagining there's a treasure trove of old NES, SNES, and N64 games back there. haha.

The N64 endures!!

@Ooyah agreed. They are works of art. Throwing them away is a crime.

Love it

There's a pub near where I work that has an N64 set up on a big screen with 4 controllers and a copy of Mario Kart 64. Takes a while to get used to the refresh rate with 4 players but still a lot of fun!

I have to say that I'm completely baffled and saddened by the amount of people simply throwing away their game boxes. Why would you even WANT to do that? It's simply not done, and there's just no excuse for it. Bunch of barbarians...

On topic: poor Mario Kart. Having to lay there, in the dust and grime, for all these years. I guess even popular racers need to eat some dust some times...

@Findonovan95 Mario Kart 64 was actually the 64th entry in the series...

Europe had the better boxes

@1UP_MARIO I'm from Europe but nah, US boxes were better without the huge black border around the artwork.

Japanese boxes were the best though.

I hope he didn't open it. XD

I can always play Mario Kart 64, but I’m gonna miss Toys R Us. That was my first job.

I find this hard to believe, considering how often stores like Toys’R’Us rearrange their shelving. You mean to tell me that this particular shelving unit didn’t move for 20 years?

Only Toys R Us in the US are closing, all Canadian locations will remain open. In fact it appears that Toys R Us has even become a CDN owned and operated company during this bankruptcy. At least the legacy will live on!

@thesilverbrick

I worked in a retail store that closed, and yes, I can confirm that it does indeed happen. Sure they move shelves around the store, but 1) it could have been under a unit that was never moved or 2) shelving units in the back of the store where shipments come in, rarely move. So yeah, I can believe that it got knocked under some shelves that weren't moved for 20 years. I believe them.

@BigKing we also played the games with nice black borders and the true speed of the games

@Findonovan95 Er no, Mario kart SNES was the original.......

Don't stores have systems that says what they have in stock?

@AlexOlney @Dom Your story is wrong, Toys R Us Canada is staying open. They were bought by a Canadian investment firm and the company is now 100% Canadian owned and operated. They're even looking at opening new, smaller stores in smaller markets while maintaining their large box stores in larger markets. The Canadian company has been very solvent and had to give money to the U.S. company which couldn't get their act together, just like what happened to Blockbuster Video actually. But yeah, Toys R Us Canada is open and thriving so come visit the clearly superior North American country for some awesome toys!

Also, that is one dusty Mario Kart 64 box, LOL! Additional point of clarification, Toys R Us Canada still has the R Zone department (where I worked through high school) to this day and still sell video games. Clearly you should come to Canada!!!

@TPort777 I've had to make that correction several times here on NintendoLife and other sites because all of these websites lump Canada in to the U.S. and forget we are a separate country. As a former Toys R Us Canada employee, I'm so happy the company is now 100% Canadian owned and operated and is looking to expand even more across the country. TRU Canada had to send money to the U.S. but now they don't have to do that and the money can stay here, modernizing their stores and getting more product on the shelves. Same thing happened with Blockbuster Video when it closed. The Canadian arm of the company was very profitable but the U.S. bled it dry so they could stay afloat a few months longer. Glad TRU U.S. didn't drag our stores down.

@tobibra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting)

@Link41 Yeah that makes me happy that Toys R Us lives on here in Canada. May we never find the old video game boxes under our shelves.

@thesilverbrick I looked in the window of my Toys R Us last year, before they announced they were liquidating. Most of the store was identical to the way it was 30 years ago. The front counter, the seasonal front aisle, the claims counter with the door to the stock room where they'd retrieve the video games with the shelf tickets. Not a single anything has moved in 30 years. It's totally believable. The section where the video games used to be shown/demoed had been remodeled long ago many times, but much of the store was static.

Some people see that as a bad thing and love change for the sake of change which I'll never understand. The layout was perfectly functional....why change it just to say it's changed? Companies waste millions constantly remodeling things that looked and worked just fine just because people want "new."

I imagine it's an American thing. Europe has buildings a hundred years old and they still retrofit them and use them as is. In the US we bulldoze anything over 30 as ancient and build new ones in their place just because people want new. Yet nostalgia is big business. Apparently we keep getting told by our betters we want new, but actually are willing to pay more to get old....

@DarthFoxMcCloud That's interesting. I wonder what it is about Canada that A) Manages to keep companies aflat despite the real HQ in the US going down, and more importantly B) Manages to actually turn a profit at these kind of stores where in the US everything vanishes and is absorbed into ever bigger monopolies?

@NEStalgia I guess my local Toys’R’Us was unusual, then. The games section moved to three different places in the store in ten years, and the layout of everything else was constantly changing, too, shelves and all. Something like this couldn’t have happened at the store closest to me.

@Findonovan95 Super Mario Kart for the SNES was the original...

@thesilverbrick The video game section seems to be the one commonality that was changed and moved often. Back in the SNES days they just had long rows in mine with a demo station in the middle, and just rows of the flip-up box covers and blue tag pouches. Nintendo on the left, Neo Geo, Jaguar, etc on the right, Sega wherever. And a smaller shelf with legacy stuff in the next half aisle next to the restrooms (NES etc.)

By the N64 era, there was this recessed cemi-circle cutout with a half wall, it looked makeshift, with demo stations for Saturn, PSX, SegaCD, and something else I don't remember. And a huge Mario64 demo kiosk on the endcap across from it, and part of the old cover-sleeve aisle with a lot of SNES still in it.

But the rest of the store.....I'm sure even 3 weeks ago the board games were still in the back right corner where they were in '88.

Definitely a cool find! I hope the employee that found it gets to keep it.

Doesnt look like it has the plastic cover and as clearly seen it's dusty and probably warped.

Cool find!

@1UP_MARIO Europe also had 50Hz.

@Angelic_Lapras_King we were spoiled by Nintendo. 😉

@1UP_MARIO Pre-Nintendo of Europe days anyhow.

My local Toys R Us found a Sega Genesis cartridge (I think it was in the box) under the shelves as well as NES carts behind the registers when they were clearing the store out. Also, I found a bunch of old papers under the video game section, which included "Bonus Bucks" which were $10 off an N64 and an advertisement for the launch of the PS2

@ThanosReXXX

only cardboard boxes I still have are 3DO game boxes.

my neo geo is still in OG box but the games are just in the plastic containers (i think; been a while since i went to that back corner of the closet).

my genesis games are still in plastic boxes but all my snes games are loose as well as my snes gen 2.

And still the article is incorrect hours later...

@thesilverbrick not hard to believe at all really, the Toy-R-Us that was in my town stayed virtually the same from the time they opened in the mid 90s until they closed earlier this year. In a way I hated going in there because it felt so dated. I do miss it now that it’s gone. Only place in town for toys now is Walmart, that sucks.

@sword_9mm Well, I joined Nintendo during the N64 days, and I still have all my N64 game boxes, and they're all still in pretty good condition as well.

@Jordino what were the games, and what happened to them? I'd hate to think that they'd get thrown away...

@ThanosReXXX

I never held onto any of them throughout the years.

i used to keep stuff like the main system boxes and what not but quit doing that as well. i do still have my switch box but that's just holding the dock/joycon base thing and psu/cables.

@sword_9mm Still got all of these as well, also for all my handhelds, ever since the Game Boy Color, and I also still have all the boxes of all the controllers, other peripherals and cables and so on. Really quite handy if you need to put them away in an orderly fashion, or when you're moving house...

It is not shutting its stores across North America. Only the US stores are shutting. The Canadian stores are still open.

fell down beneath some shelves back in the 90s?
it should remain right there where it belongs.
dusty on the floor because the n64 is overrated.

@AxeltheBuizel They definitely didn't get thrown away. I'm not sure what games they were but the employees took them home.

Bet it's still $60...

@Dom Will the article get fixed soon?

I dunno, yeah there's some dirt, but having cleaned under the shelves at retailers before (namely Target and Petco), the stuff that coems out from under there is generally in pretty unsavory condition. That box looks way too pristine for it to have been under that shelf for as long as it would have to have been.

@1UP_MARIO um... how is the huge black border better? Did all your games have those?

A fossil

That should be sold off as Toys R Us memorabilia.

@Jordino I bet they likely sold them on EBay. This whole thing reminds me of the time I found a bunch of 90's Pokemon stickers at my local Toys R Us. When I asked an employee, they said they had no clue, as they came on a truck a few weeks before. I ended up buying a ton, as they were really cheap.

Well, Toys R Us isn't shutting down across North America... only in the U.S.

This is too good to be true, but I love it. <3

@ShadJV yes. All of them

@thesilverbrick the manager probably had OCD.

Some of my N64 collection, I have a lot more now though (close to complete), these are old pics.
All complete, all original Australian releases, nearly all mint.
The ones that look faded are still in their plastic protectors.
Yes.
I'm obsessed.

This is why Toys R Us always had that smell. Clean your shop floors dirty retailers!

Desperate for news? How is this even worth mentioning?

Strange find considering they kept games in the back even during that time. You had to take the card for $59.99 to the register to buy one. I remember because I bought the game on release in March 97 (a long with a pack of Life Saver Gummies). So many good memories working my first job around the N64 launch period.

But yes, I would love to have some boxed N64 games still if they weren't so pricey. I have since recollected many of the N64 games I had back then, and I had a lot. I made the dumb mistake in college of selling off my collection for a mere $100 to a guy in Florida on eBay. I had rare things like collectors edition Zeldas and all of my games boxed as well as the elusive Nintendo branded component cable you had to mail order from them.
I dont have many boxes now, only around four, but I do have a Mario Kart 64 box. Unfortunately it looks like someone ripped some tape off of the front so most of Mario's character is missing from the box and the bare cardboard is showing (but I'll hold onto it).

Too cool! (Here we go~)

@ThanosReXXX I used to keep all my games in their original boxes for the longest time. But constantly taking them out and putting them back in wore the boxes out so much that I eventually just had to throw them away because they were falling apart.

I always wished that Nintendo would've gone the Sega route and went with the plastic cases, those things were cool.

@Tank207 Oh, don't get me wrong, and perhaps I should have elaborated earlier: I don't keep my games in the boxes either. I have an N64 travel case, which fits the console, cables, controllers and games, and then I have another satchel for cartridges, in which I store all the rest of them.

The empty boxes are safely stored in a dark, spacious closet...

@Tank207
"I used to keep all my games in their original boxes for the longest time. But constantly taking them out and putting them back in wore the boxes out so much that I eventually just had to throw them away because they were falling apart.

I always wished that Nintendo would've gone the Sega route and went with the plastic cases, those things were cool."

Many folks probably would had been encouraged to keep the packages for video games if Nintendo had gone that route much sooner.

@ThanosReXXX Ah, I never had anything like that. Eventually I started storing my games in old camera equipment bags to keep them safe and take them over to friend's houses. Nowadays I just keep all my SNES and N64 games in a locked filing cabinet.

Honestly if I had kept all the boxes from all the SNES, N64, Game Boy games I have I'd have no place to store them lol.

I don’t understand why people would throw the game boxes away. People back in the day kept their VHS boxes.

"Pick up and run" journalism at its best.........

Guys and gals, this was NOT a box discovered under the shelves, but the cardboard game display. Take a look at how thin the item is in between the photo taker's fingers. It was also debunked a couple of days after this image went viral. N64 game boxes were at least an inch thick.

I'm so tempted to shout "Fake News"! 😅😂

@ogo79 I still have my Mario 64 box, outlived our dog that ate one of the sides.

Was TRU still doing the display card thing. I recall buying Tetris Attack GB at that time (at the expense of a cheap new Chrono Trigger) and they still did the card thing.

My favourite Mario Kart. It boggles my mind that's been sitting under a shelf for 21 years or so!

N64 mini confirmed.

@Nico07 yeah that is a big reason why I'm confused too. This whole thing makes no sense. I remember the aisle, it was just a huge aisle of pieces of paper you took to somewhere else where someone would go get the actual item and have you pay for it. I actually remember getting my gameboy that way specifically because I was super excited for it.

I have to wonder what went on in the store where they were leaving boxes out at all, I mean they didn't even have displays or anything either that at least I can recall. Its almost as if a customer bought it, went back into the store to look for stuff, and threw it under some oddball shelf. Perhaps a shady employee who tried to stash a copy away and retrieve it later without paying? Could even have been a matter of bringing the shipment in, and it fell off something as it was being hauled in and got kicked under shelving? I can't say for sure. But I think the fact that they didn't change or rearrange their shelving in 20 years is impressive and sad. My Toys R Us changed its layout probably 3 times or more in those 20 years.

@hirokun @ThanosReXXX Another possibility is that the game ended up in some bargin bin, but I would think it would have been marked with a sticker. But this is Mario Kart, I doubt it ever went on a sale where it was discounted enough to be on the floor. It seems more likely that some shady employee was stashing it till it fell off the inventory and then they would go and retrieve it later.

@KingMike Yes Toys R Us has been doing the cards since before Mario Kart 64 (March 97) up until they closed.

I want it

@tobibra If the box was missing they may have thought it had been stolen and the cartridge could have still been sold.

@Pod
Man, a complete box+cart+manual set in mint condition is already $200+ on eBay. Factory sealed has GOT to be worth a small fortune..

yeah.....

maybe it will save toys r us

It's not a boxed game 🙄 Lol

@PALversusNTSC
D'ohoho!

@Magrane
Wait, this was just an empty display box? I mistook those speed lines on the asphalt for creases in a plastic seal. Dayum.

@Nico07 I think I went to Toys R Us once in the 2000s and by then they went to putting the games in glass cases, as Target and Walmart had been doing.

@KingMike
most stores like tru had plastic clear boxes the games went in, and we had to unlock the games to scan them

@Don
"I don’t understand why people would throw the game boxes away. People back in the day kept their VHS boxes."

This was probably due to the boxes being nearly the same size or sizes of VHS cassettes.

Now i know what i'm saving for over 20 years

Hopefully the game's still inside and he has a N64. Great game.

@Marios-love-child indeed you do not... I sold my SNES with around 15 Games (including Mario Paint with Mouse and Mousepad ) on a flea market for less then 200 DM (Deutsch Mark) which would be 150€ today. And for what? To buy a modchip for my brothers PS1 I was 13 that time...

@PhilKenSebben Super was the second. The Nintendo was the Original.

@RayRae84 there was no MK on the NES. Series started with Super on the SNES.

@Freek Impressive!