The news has been repeatedly reporting that a very rare NES game sold for almost $100,000 on eBay a few days ago. Unfortunately the winning bid was a fake and so the game remains unsold. It should be noted however, that the game itself does seem legit and if the seller decides to re list it then we can only speculate how much it might go for. Why would anyone spend thousands of dollars on an old, bashed up game? Well here’s why…
The game is one of the rarest items in gaming history, although around 1,200 were made, only twenty are known to exist. Despite the final bid being a flop, just seeing the game is noteworthy. The game was one of several special cartridges made by Nintendo in 1990 as part of their “world” championship tour that spanned several US cities and ended in Hollywood.
The cartridges were played by the competitors and about ninety of the cartridges were given to the competitors who reached the finals. The rest were either taken by Nintendo, destroyed, or turned into the gold cartridges that were given away as part of a competition in the magazine Nintendo Power.
Nintendo World Championship cartridges have turned up on eBay in the past and have sold for up to $5000, though one was sold at a convention for $12,000 in 2011. When this game went online it of course attracted a lot of media attention which in turn attracted fake buyers who apparently have nothing better to do than troll a guy. Many people pointed out that even though the game was rare, $100,000 was still way too much for it.
Our fears were confirmed when the seller, Muresan, contacted the NintendoAge.com forums, telling them that the winner of the auction had backed out with the excuse that their two year old had placed the bid without their knowledge….hmm.
So it seems that the final bid was an elaborate troll. Muresan could re-list the game but finding a legit buyer will be difficult with so many trolls around. I hope that Muresan manages to get a good price for his game and that the game itself will go to a good home.
Source: PriceCharting
