This Ultra-Rare Copy Of The Original NES Zelda Just Sold For $870,000

If it sells in India, it WILL go for rupees!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupee

NINJA APPROVES GLOBAL COMMERCE

Just download the rom.

Can we stop reporting on people spending too much money on items that should either be used or placed in a museum? I'm sick of these.

@oatmaster
Or use the switch’s virtual console but either option is good.

Hmmm. $110k, or $20 a year with a bunch of other games included...

I know that's not the point, as this likely will never be played, which feels all the more wasteful. Maybe I just don't get it

I mean, I know Nintendo games hold there value but this is ridiculous!

@nukatha not enough media museums. There's my next venture. Now I just need an absurd amount of cash to get things started

You can have my original gold cart Zelda when you pry it from my clammy, cheeto dust encrusted hands.

It has little to do with gaming, despite being a cart. This is just another instance of rich people selling and buying trinkets in the hopes to get richer. It's one of my favorite games of all time, but what I care about is playing it, which can be done easily in so many ways. The box is a novelty to see in a picture.

So much money for basically a cartboard box. Because the second they open it it loses almost all the value.

@nukatha Take it easy there Indian Jones! Not serious, just wanted to drop that Indiana Jones call out.

Heritage Auctions is just a small circle of people trying to falsify the value of these kind of items. Making them seem more than they're worth in the hope of making profit. Don't fall for it.

My pops always told me to invest in gold...

@GrailUK
Mine always said to invest in coins.

@Aliteralturnip @GrailUK Invest in what you use. I should have bought Nintendo stock a long time ago!

All that money. . . Xx

This is a 2D zelda, is it even worth 60 dollars? Let alone 110.000?

(Am I doing this right?)

Morshu approves.

Video games are meant to be PLAYED. This is almost as bad as those insufferable YouTubers like MetalJesusRocks who buy hundreds of games they'll never play, just to have them sit on a shelf gathering dust until they do a "hidden gems" video to artificially inflate the price.

@nukatha

Yep, that is some Investor Market with those hyper super Prices.
The Game is common and even here in Europe you can get one in good Condition for a Price in mortal Hemispheres.

Missed opportunity to offer an NFT of the picture of the sealed copy or something else totally silly. Considering the actual copy will just remain sealed in the shrink wrap, and then further sealed in its hard plastic sarcophagus for eternity, it's debatable if it would be more or less useless than an NFT version.

I am into Baseball cards and feel like the prices on games are nothing.

I think there are much more important things to spend money on, but if people want to waste their [often] hard-earned money on stuff just because it's rare, that's on them. Besides, maybe it will mean less money for them to spend on buying up a whole bunch of other items to sell for massively inflated prices.

@kingbk I wonder a lot about those guys. At least AVGN plays the games and shows them off, but there are tons of you tubers that just have...stuff. It’s like televised gluttony. Very weird.

What sort of device opens a case like that? Guillotine?

@BloodNinja Agreed. I buy games to play them. They happen to sit on my shelf because that's where I store them. There are a lot of YouTubers who collect games to... look cool to people? The whole YouTube culture around retro video games (and increasingly the Nintendo Switch) is just strange. For the Switch in particular, a lot of rumor mongering about things that no one has any "sources" about just to get people watching their videos, or just regurgitating news headlines from Google.

As an ex-collector (but with difficulty of letting go when it come to LoZ) I am and have always been more than happy with near-mint complete copies of every Zelda game, they have all been used and enjoyed, and not even my entire collection of everything ever has cost me that much. My original LoZ looks as good as new, and has cost me about €35 back then, got it together with Zelda 2 (in a very slightly less mint condition, still amazingly great) for €70 total, which meant I could sell my even still slightly less mint copy of Zelda 2 I already owned, no set starting price, and the first one interested immediately offered €50. I said okay, but maybe you want to actually see it first? So we met, and he still offered €50. I honestly would have been happy with €35, even money, but oh well.

@nukatha,

You sound like Indiana Jones.

Some people must have money to burn.

@wazlon,

It's all relative, to the people buying these items it like us spending $5 or so, it's only to the mere mortals of this world any of this is actually any serious money.

@oatmaster I was going to say that more money than sense some people

@kingbk are stamps and action figures only meant to be used though?

Extremely rich person: "Hmmm, which fancy paperweight to buy today? Ah, look at this plastic case with something inside. $870000? I'll take it."

Edit: Amended comment to include final price.

@BloodNinja Yep. These people must have big houses too I guess! Spare rooms to just dedicate to games. Pretty cool if you have the space, but I still would not do it if I had the space or money.

PatTheNesPunk has talked loads about this on his podcast. There seems to be a concerted effort to create an artificial market, nobody cared about print runs of NES games 18 months ago, video games aren't like books.

@Mana_Knight Same. That sort of space would be better for a training area or something!

@BloodNinja They should have reported the current bid in Rupees, which incidentally is 8197035 Rupees according to Google

@B4L0R_CLUB Hahahah, excellent

NINJA APPROVES EXCHANGE RATE

@B4L0R_CLUB Nobody would be able to buy them.
What's the biggest Wallet size they made? 5k Rupees?

@Deady I've heard my gray cart is probably rarer but nobody cares about that.

Also, how do the graders know how many screws are in the cart if they haven't opened the box? Maybe this is an ultra-rare 4-screw variant nobody has seen before? YOU NEVER KNOW!

What is the point in this nonsense? This is all material things 😐😐

@BloodNinja Years ago a friend of mine went around the world for a year and brought me back a sweet rupee bill to frame. It’s got Ghandi on one side and a rhino, a tiger, and an elephant on the other. Rupees rule.

@Deady That must look awesome!

Is there a best offer option?

Because my offer is fiddy bucks.

I wonder if the save battery is working, or if it has leaked and corroded the cart from the inside 😉

I have a sealed copy of Ikaruga (pal) version for the GameCube that I bought on release with the intention of playing it but because I have such a huge backlog (that has actually increased over the years) I never got around to playing it.
I then saw that it was released on my 360 a few years later before I got to open it so I downloaded it on that for cheap instead and kept my Cube version sealed, which it still is today.
I plan on giving it to my daughter who is an avid gamer to sell in the future for a very nice profit.
See, investing in games can be beneficial and my mother said nothing good will come out of them.
Pfffft.

This is a museum piece, and as such it should retain some value. $110,000 worth? Maybe not. But let's not pretend that this is equivalent to just downloading the rom or something. The packaging differences between different runs, the SOQ differences, etc., all hold historical value.

People need to accept that collecting video games has become a hobby for a lot of people, and there is a huge market for it right now. It has shown to be a good investment just like comic books, and cards etc. I get why these first print mint condition copies are going for crazy money. If I had the money to spend like that, I would love to chase down one of these and pass down to my children. The value of these rare games will only continue to go up as time goes on.

My favorite part of this is that the internal battery likely dead and leaking and will damage the internal components if not replaced.

Just display it in your office and you can write it off against your profits as a "Work of Art", you could also claim the full amount as it would definitely not be classed as depreciable artwork.

Container of wealth, that's all the rich collectors see when they shop on Heritage. Have fun selling these games to the rest of the 1% collectors over and over.

@jorel262

Same goes for other stuff also like Picasso paintings and so on Nothing special but people do buy it for unreasanoble prices. Pokemon cards is off the roof for the moment

If you feel annoyed with yourself that you didnt hold on to X game because now its worth a lot of money. Go right now and buy some crypto. This is not financial advice. Go buy an index fund of the top 10 tokens (minus the stable coins and doge) and some up and coming alts such as prosper and allianceblock.

That could get you a lot of lamp oil, rope, and bombs.

I don’t get all the animosity. It’s not like this is the only Zelda cart and someone keeping it sealed is preventing people from playing it. There’s not even anything special about the version of the software that needs to be preserved. If someone wants to spend a lot of money and display it good for them.

It'd be cool if the buyer just opens it and plays the game

Packaging: "Includes invaluable maps..."

Invaluable (adj.):

• An item valued to the sum of $870,000.

I guess if you’re a rich tech bro this is how you buy an NES game

I wonder how is the save battery inside like after all these years, I hope it hasn't leaked and damaged the circuit board.

@wishm we'll never know, because it will never be opened.

Eugh. Should be in a museum, not used to shift money between the 1%.

@xxx128 I understand the feelings toward scalping, but this is 1 of millions of Zelda cartridges out there that some people feel is worth more because it has a special designation on it, and also because it’s sealed. There are plenty of Zelda cartridges for those who want one to play.

This is why everyone should buy two copies of every game they buy. Put one sealed copy in storage and wait 50 years before touching it again. The problem is I'll be 77 years old if I actually manage to live that long.

@Joekun Yeah that's the problem I have with this. I mean I could understand an insane value if it's, like, a one of one or a one of five or something, but NES Zelda was one of the best selling games on the NES, there are tons of copies floating around, and it shouldn't even be that hard to find a good boxed copy. You are literally paying an $800,000+ premium for some cheap plastic wrap and the cardboard being in slightly better condition, and you can't even really appreciate it.

@JayJ Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t ever pay that kind of money even if I had it, but this is a rare revision of the cartridge. It means nothing to me, but to some people it’s a big deal I guess. I don’t have a problem with that. They aren’t hurting anyone by wasting their money, or keeping this sealed.

@Joekun You could easily find this "rare revision" cartridge in the wild, and it definitely wouldn't cost you a fortune like this either. The entire selling point for this is the fact that it's still wrapped in plastic. An $800,000+ premium for that. That's some expensive cheap plastic.

@wishm I've opened a lot of games (my entire 200-some GB collection, plus who knows how many SNES/SFC games) and I've only seen one battery leakage on one game (Kirby's Star Stacker, one of a number of cheap Japanese "junk" carts filling that collection, so I'd guess it's more of a question of where/how it was played/stored before being sold).

@kingbk Well i don't know .. people collect Stamp, Coins, Comic Books, Disney VHS tapes, that stay mint and never used .. and i'm pretty sure stamps were meant to be sent and coins were meant to be spent? So what's the difference if people want to collect games>? Yes games were meant to be played but all those things i just mention had a purpose too. Not saying i would pay this insane price btw

Whoever bought that is a moron. Whoever sold it is a genius.

I don't have much use for items this expensive, but I do appreciate the market for them. I feel like they play an important role in video game culture, and that does warrant a high price at times, especially for bragging rights of the buyer. At the very least, I like seeing Nintendo Life publish articles on items like these as well. Most of these rare versions I have never heard of.

Materialism at it's finest.

@kingbk-Yes, yes, and yes.👏

@infernogott @KingMike Maybe they can send it to an archaeologists for an x-ray.

I know it's a full game and there's no worries about needing to spend extra on DLC after buying it, still very expensive though