An unopened copy of the classic ’90s video game “Super Mario 64″ sold at an auction for $1.56 million Sunday, according to Heritage Auctions.
The Dallas-based company, which markets itself as the “world’s largest collectible auctioneer,” originally announced that the game would be joining their July 11 video game auction last Thursday in a press release, calling the title “coveted.”(RELATED: Decades-Old Cartridge Sets New Record For Most Expensive Video Game Ever Sold At Auction)
“It seems impossible to overstate the importance of this title, not only to the history of Mario and Nintendo, but to video games as a whole,” Valarie McLeckie, Heritage Auctions video games specialist said in the release.
The game, which was released in 1996 and originally made for the Nintendo 64 console, broke barriers in the 90s as Mario’s debut into 3D, making it the best selling and most popular game for the console, according to Heritage.
The sealed copy sold at the auction is one of fewer than five sealed copies graded 9.8 by Wata, a professional video game grading system, according to Heritage. When it sold for $1.56 million, the copy broke the world record for the most expensive video game at an auction, according to a Twitter post from Heritage. Heritage Auctions has not disclosed the identity of the buyer.
The sale breaks the previous record set on Friday at Heritage Auctions when a copy of “The Legend of Zelda” sold for $870,000. The 1987 video game was also unopened, according to Fox Business.
Before “The Legend of Zelda” sold on Friday, the previous record had also been set by a Mario game, when an unopened copy of “Super Mario Bros.” sold for $660,000 in April of 2021, according to The New York Times.