Talking Point: How Much Would You Pay For A Mint Copy Of Super Mario Bros.?

I wouldn't give the hair off the back of my knuckles.

Or and start up the Nintendo Online Service!

Nothing? I can play it right now on my switch and it plays like it's in mint condition and I never have to blow on it. Plus I have enough cardboard lying around as it is

I'd pay rrp. Games are for playing.

Zero dollars. Partly because my kids would find a way to destroy any copy of this game I could buy.

Meh. I'm not much of a collector of this kind of stuff. Give me something I can actually play. I have a house with a gaming system in it - it's not a museum.

I have no need for another copy of Super Mario Bros. I got SMB in the 80s, and played the heck out of it. My brother still has that NES and SMB 1&2, but we're over retro gaming.

Realistically? Like $20 or $30 at most. I'm being serious lol.
I would have no problem paying a little more for a sealed copy of a lot of other games, but not the OG Mario Bros.

Was wondering if Nintendolife are going to acknowledge the part they have played in "the unfolding drama"? Perhaps instead of puff pieces or quick easy articles, maybe think about what you're publishing first. In case of helping scam artists like Wata and the Amico.

If I still had my collector's mindset circa-2011, upwards to $60. But these days of not being a vintage collector anymore, probably cap at $30. I would likely just put it in a frame and hang it up.

My favorite game of all time is Saturn Bomberman, which I still have a complete-in-box copy of which is in "good enough" condition after all these years. If the copy I own magically disappeared, I would want to replace it with a new working copy (even if I never get around to playing it these days), but I wouldn't pay ridiculous amounts of money for a "mint" copy. In fact, I might just be happy with my memories of the game. So yeah... obviously I'd pay millions, if not billions of dollars for a mint-in-box copy of Supreme Maria Brothels or whatever it is we're talking about here. That's the game about a bandicoot collecting chaos emeralds, right?

Realistically speaking, no more than 300$ in cash.

I could see $100-150 for a vintage mint condition product that otherwise has little to no value beyond nostalgia and the tangible product outside nostalgia is virtually worthless.

Personally I wouldn't pay it. I'd pay to see something the way I once had/saw it again, but for these games, the boxes that I own have value because I owned, them, but the box itself being sealed doesn't have any nostalgic value, the game itself does, and that's something I already get on my current console. I'd pay more for one of those Toys R Us slips in original blue pouch that you'd pull from the shelf and take to the counter to buy a game. That's something you just can't see otherwise.

Anyone paying thousands or millions for an "almost free" game just because it's got the shrinkwrap on it has a few screws loose, but is more likely a hedge fund manager riding speculation waves, trading "collectibles" like oil futures. I mean if old stuff has millions in value just because it's old, then I could rival Bezos soon just as soon as I set this eBay page up.

I wouldn't pay a lot for it. I don't buy anything just to own (who has that kind of disposable cash besides Youtubers these days lol) but if I bought a copy to play, I would at least expect it to be in a looked after condition. Grading is a load of <expletive deleted>.

I would pay what my folks did in 1985 and adjust it for inflation.
Games are best played, and if you wish to display the artwork, nothing wrong with a good print

Look, when you're collecting, prices are subjective, and can go up and down depending on the season and the way the moon looks like at night. Collecting IS expensive.

Spotless and sealed for 30+ years is quite an anomaly, so probably worth over $100 nowadays.
Do note that for any cartridge game with an onboard battery for saves or clocks, like the two NES Zelda games, Pokemon games, etc. being sealed is a liability rather than an asset, as you don't want an ancient battery damaging the circuit board.
That said, CIB in good shape shouldn't be very different in price from sealed for cartridge games, when the difference is minimal.
Disk games, on the other hand, we're starting to find out which optical disk technologies are long-lasting, and which degrade in 20-30 years.
Sealed games are effectively guaranteed to be scratch-free, which means more likely to be usable than opened-box, so should be worth a little more that way, as long as other existing copies haven't rotted out.

Who's buying a sealed/mint 35 year old iconic game just to play it? It's an investment opportunity at this point. If I happened upon a sealed, mint copy that someone was offloading at a reasonable price, I'd buy it and sell it to a collector that values it much more than I do. But there are a million other ways to buy SMB just to play it.

I bough the Mario Game & Watch last year for € 54,99, which was just about the right price for the package.

A mint edition NES game, well, I don't have a NES and I don't really need one. So, I wouldn't buy it.

none.
I have Super Mario All Stars on Wii, and Super Mario Bros NES Edition on GBA.

One Hundred Billion Dollars!

If I'd still own my NES I then I would pay up to $15 for a copy, I'd value sealed games equally to loose carts.
But I really don't care about collecting games and tbh I like modern games much more then the old rough NES titles.

I'd pay a buck for it.

I really like learning about production and marketing from Nintendo in different eras, and having a sealed box would be a really interesting thing! So it's not that I'd be paying for a game, but paying for a piece of history that has a decent amount of value to me. I get that others wouldn't find it valuable though too.
With that being said, I would be willing to pay around $100. It'd be really cool to have and check out, but at the end of the day, something more than $100 could go towards something more useful.

$60 to $70, it's a collector's item, but i already have several ways to play the game (SMB/Duck hunt cart, Mario all-stars, SMB deluxe on GBC, NES Mini, Switch online...), so i won't go too far...

100 doll hairs

I’m not sure I’d really want a sealed game. I’d want to play it. But I don’t think I’d pay any more than somewhere between £100-200. Mainly because I’m not made of money!

I don't pay for things that are going to sit in my closet taking up space. You gotta pay me rent for that privilege.

I have a beat up cartridge-only Legend of Zelda I’ve had for nearly my entire life. Something like that trades for $5 or less but this copy of Zelda is priceless to me, it is bound to me.

Conversely, the recent trend of sealed games fetching ridiculously inflated prices for the first time ever does nothing for me. It sounded fake from the start. I don’t think I’d buy something just to sell it, and the things I keep on display here are just regular things I’ve collected along the way.

With that said, I was recently at a used book store and found a 97 year old book with only 1,000 prints in the world for $7.50. Scarcity doesn’t equal value but it’s still fun to look at and I have a thing for old books. Therefore, I would pay $7.50 for this Mario.

I voted $500 - $1000. The only two games I would consider buying (if the price was reasonable) sealed and in great condition are Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 as they both have sentimental value and I would frame and hang them on a wall.

📊I voted for 'less than $60' but in reality, I'd wouldn't bother.

I already have SMB1 on GBA, NES: Mini, SNES: Mini, R4 Card, Bittboy: Pocket-Go, 3DS VC and NSO.

I also have a CIB GBC version and even a CIB NES version though I don't own said Consoles.

The reason is because SMB1 is the first Console Game I owned back in 1992.

$0. Take away rose specs, and it was never THAT good compared to Mario 3.

It’s a “mint” copy so therefor If I were to pay money for it, it wouldn’t be to play - so what’s the point?

And if to play, there’s hundreds of ways for me to play it for free anyhow.

Everything else is just speculation that it might go up in value.. and that doesn’t interest me in the slightest - I invest my money, I don’t gamble.

@Carck haha came here to write that.

I gave him a dolla!

A few thousand or even a hundred thousand is probably a good investment.

Mint copy are a ripoff, almost all the retro games I bought nowadays are used copies and they work just as good.

One of a kind? Ultra rare? Mint condition? You're a collector with a unlimited budget? You are going to pay one dollar more than the next highest bidder. That is all.

I'm not sure "expect to pay" is a good question to ask, given the sample betting pulled. In not sure it's even a very interesting one regardless. "How much would you be willing to pay" is probably a better question. For me, probably $100, if I could find it for that price. SMB is one of a very few games I'd like to own sealed.

Or I could ya know shop around eBay for reasonable used copy if I even wanted to own the damn thing.

$0. I don't want to own sealed games. I would buy a CIB copy in decent condition for $100. Sadly that has not been possible since the pawn starts appearance 2 years ago.

Not much, if i got a sealed copy, I would take the wrapping off and put it in the console and play it, as that is the reason for it being created.

I'm into action figures, so I know how the market should work, and that it's not working like that right now. But if it were an action figure, I'd put it somewhere in the $100-$250 range.

500 Wii Points.

One poison mushroom

I voted less than $60, but really if I ever see one, I probably wouldn't even think about getting it. I don't have an NES to play it and there are many ways to play SMB.

I have these options to play it: SNES All-Stars, SMB Deluxe on Game Boy Color, Wii Virtual Console, Wii All-Stars, Luigi Bros. in NES Remix 2, Speed Mario Bros. in Ultimate NES Remix, NES Switch Online, SNES Switch Online, Game & Watch from 2020.

About 3 fiddy.

Id say it's worth at least a couple grand. I'd pay maybe 2k for it. I've never seen one.

Judging from these answers, people really need to research what they have before selling it. 😂 I wouldn't buy it unless the seller had no clue what they had. I'd immediately flip it on eBay and invest that profit ASAP. 🧐

200 bucks top

@Clarice love the south park quote

I won’t pay that much for a game I can play on my Switch anytime I want.

Now a game like Panzer Dragoon Saga… I’ll admit that I was once tempted to drop 500 bucks on a copy back in the day before it got outrageous. It wasn’t mint or even sealed, but it was complete. I decided against it. Looking back, that was a mistake considering the same quality copy is going for 1200-1500 bucks now.

@EVIL-C

That’s how I feel now.

I really regret not picking up that copy of PDS for 500 bucks back in the day. I had the extra money to blow.

Now they are going for over a grand easily. And not even mint. I’d hate to see a sealed copy pop up.

Anyone who got into Saturn collecting back in the early 2000s are sitting on gold mines now. Even a relatively common Saturn game like Megaman X4 or Megaman 8 go for 5 to 7 times the amount a Playstation copy goes for.

@Carck tree fiddy??? You can't go giving no auction house tree fiddy.

If I know that such copy could be sell for a couple of millions as have been done recently... I would pay enough to get a nice return after reselling it for mor than $500,000.
Why are people are voting for so low prices?

Highly recommend this recent video from Karl Jobst: Exposing FRAUD And DECEPTION In The Retro Video Game Market
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A

Nothing. The NES was nowhere near as good as the Master System and whilst it earned its place in history Super Mario Bros isn’t as good as Alex Kidd in Miracle World.

Weird really I wouldn’t buy it . Super Mario world is one of the greatest games ever as fun today as it ever was. Super Mario bros jus think didn’t grab me, I played again a few months ago was fun for about 5 mins but felt I’d had my fill. A lot of 8 bit games to me feel like the practice version for the main event that is 16 bit. Some may say Mario 3 but is there an 8 bit game that wasn’t bested by a 16 bit version xxx

Considering I watched a video about this fraud issue, and I am poor, I paid $40 for a game and watch version and with my other several versions I have on 10 other devices, I probably paid $5 for, I guess I would pay $100 for a mint copy. But others who have tons of money, and want to create an artificial market, well, they can pay $2million if they want.
if these videos are to be believed, someone who rated the game, bought the game, went on a pr campaign to promote this market of retro games. Now all is suckers who have a game that thinks it’s worth money, are paying these same people to have their rated. And these rating companies are making money off buying their own products, and acting like this game is really worth $2million.
This is capitalism at its finest and it’s also why I choose to not spend money with certain companies.

I bought the game and watch, does tht count ?

Nothing. It's one of the most reproduced, readily available, and perfectly preserved games in existence. I already have a cartridge, a NES mini, switch online, Mario anniversary G&W, etc. Collecting video games is dumb, they're made to be played not sealed in boxes with ridiculously inflated price tags. The only valuable physical games should be the ones that are actually rare and aren't well preserved digitally.

@xiao7 Yes, how dare NintendoLife commit the ultimate sin a specialty blog could commit - telling its readers about a thing that happened in the realm of that specialty.

@UglyCasanova

Never ever blow into a Cartdridge

Clean it and it will work.

I would pay 20€, not more.

@TheRedComet I think we can all relate! I regret not asking for games like Earthbound when I was a child. 😢 But just recently I noticed my GameCube collection is worth a tiny fortune cause I got many of the heavy hitters when they were brand new, and no one wanted the "lame kiddy system", lol. 😂😂

Not much, there's probably dozens and dozens of near mint cibs and a lot more sealed than people know of out there, they did produce a lot of carts. I'd only pay big money for games with very limited runs ( no pun intended).

@Darkyoshi98 hehe, an oldie but yeah love that one. 😉

A sealed game is worthless. It only has value to me when it is opened and played. Super Mario Bros is a great game but it is super common. I would only pay $30 at most for it if it was mint.

These prices are FAKE! The hucksters running WATA / Heritage Auctions are creating these "auctions" with their own products buying and selling from themselves to create hype so they can sell the sealed games they own to the suckers who believe the hype. Please see Karl Jobst's video. it's gross nintendo life is playing into their scheme with free press.

@trcsf agreed. I can't believe Nintendo Life is giving free press to these hucksters. None of those "sales" were real. They didn't make sense when they were announced and make less sense now that Karl has exposed the money trail.

Imo, A game's worth is in how fun it is, not how hard it is to find. I find 2d mario games to be kinda boring, so yeah, below 60 would be fair.

Honestly I wouldn't pay more than $60. $100 is about the most I could justify for a new copy of some old game, but it would need to be rare, the type of game that is hard to buy in general. A game like Super Mario Bros, it sold extremely well and it's generally easy to find good used copies, I wouldn't pay much for that. The entire purpose of collecting games for me is to play them anyways, if I bought a sealed game I would want to open it.

I would give my life for a spotless and sealed copy of Super Mario Bros, and for that I mean 100 coins. Honestly I am very happy with my complete in box copy I bought for some 40 dollars over 5 years ago, and it has the same displaying purpose as a sealed copy.

I would buy it for one dollar.

those million dollar auctions were rigged. There is a video going around exposing WATA has a newly hatched 'grader' that has ties to the auction house and also there are websites that sell shares of a graded title that gets speculated like stock shares. It is a massive pump and dump scam.

Nothing? It's an extremely common game, even the NES versions can be had for a few dollars. And I don't care if it's 'mint', I buy games to play, not to look at the box.

....Can I have Super Mario Bros. 35 instead? >_>

How about a couple hundred platinum points?

0 you can play the game on a toaster at this point 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Among other things, the American copy lacks historical value, as it is a re-release. The creator's original vision is all on Japanese copy. If the Japanese artwork is better or not is something subjective, but objectively speaking it was created by the creators and not by an overseas marketing division.

If you have a internet browser that supports translation, you can get a CIB Super Mario Bros for the Famicom (without shipping) for around 1100¥ (around 10 Trumps).

like 0, i can already play it on loads of other platforms, and yeah it would be super cool to have it as a collector but i'm not THAT dedicated and i wouldn't pay 1 million dollars for a cardboard box

i would pay $20

70-100 just to smell it

Other - the point of it’s existence is to play the game and enjoy it. So I’d pay whatever the going rate is on the eShop. So in this case, the cost of Nintendo Switch Online. For those that want to pay more than that, I have some magic beans I can sell you as well.

@dartmonkey For reference, apparently Super Mario Bros. had an original retail price of $34.99 in 1985, which equates to $87.88 according to the inflation site I used.

@abdias You can't say for certain the game creator made the boxart of the original either, so I wouldn't say one version of the boxart has more "value" than the other.

Also the thing is, I don't know if many western copies of Super Mario Bros. ever had an original box, since most were probably bought as console pack-ins.
I know that was exactly the reason Super Mario World and Game Boy Tetris boxes are FAR more valuable to collectors than the cart/manual.
I can't recall if I've ever heard of games being bundled with consoles in Japan.
Same reason the Famicom light gun costs A LOT more than a Zapper.
Even Wii Sports was apparently bundled everywhere EXCEPT Japan. (though in that game's case, I hear that of bundled copies, other regions got a proper case for the game but they cheapened out only on North America with a crappy cardboard sleeve)

I paid $17.99 for a complete mint copy of Super Mario Bros. back in the summer of 2006.

$1000. That's a fair price for something highly desirable and I could likely sell for a vast profit at any point in time.

An item is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. The price goes higher when more than one person wants it.

I don't want it, so I'm out of the bidding.

@KingMike what you said don't change the fact that the NES version is not the original version, is is an altered version by an overseas marketing company, therefore worth historically much less than the Famicom version.

I don't know nothing about books, but I guess that as general rule an very old Divine Comedy transcript worth more if it is in Italian than in English.

Also, rarity is non existent for Super Mario Bros anywhere. Exclude the duck hunt version and you still get millions produced.

@abdias Were those millions ever boxed? That is the key point to collectors.
I know the total amount of packaged, individually sold, copies is never going to be near $2 million scarcity, but still scarce compared to the total number of copies (I'm guessing sold as loose cart inside console Styrofoam box).

“Prices can only go up”….right?…..right?????

I'll give you 12€ for the cart alone. And that's it... wait! no... even better... 12€ for mario bros + duck hunt. That's it.

With that many options you could have included some lower I think, felt skewed very high.

But of course, that's because I'm in the mindset, "not to be purchased as an investment/being resold but to own myself." It felt like you asked the Q like that. If so, depends on availability of the game but I wouldn't pay more than maybe a few dollars more than another version just because I like "new" a bit more than "used", if maybe 10 bucks or so would be price for the generally available versions then 14$?

If it was as an investment that becomes like predicting the future and I don't try to do that much. Max 1000 or so.