A rare blast from video gaming past was recently auctioned off this Friday. A sealed copy of Nintendo's 1987 Legend of Zelda for the NES was sold at Heritage Auction for $870,000! The sale made history as the most expensive video game ever purchased, until it was surpassed today by Heritage's auctioning of a Super Mario 64 1996 copy for $1,560,000.
There's one sole aspect that factor into this game's rarity. The copy in question was actually made during a very limited production phase of the game back in the 80's. This specific copy was one of the special few variants that were produced during a period of only a couple months in 1987. After this period of time, Nintendo went on to produce a "Rev-A" variant, never making anymore for the NES. Experts cite this copy as possibly the only one that will be offered up for auction in the near future.
"While it is a hard truth, it is a truth nonetheless -- none of the copies we've offered of this title previously could even attempt to hold a candle to this one due to its incredibly rare variant that holds early production status," the item description reads on Heritage Auction's official website, "This matter is completely inarguable. This is the only copy from one of the earliest production runs that we've ever had the opportunity to offer, and, possibly will have the opportunity to offer, for many years to come."
Along with its rarity, the copy's upkeep throughout the decades made the game very appealing for bidders. Game rating company, WataGames gave the NES copy a 9 out of 10.
Any gamer worth his salt knows the Legend of Zelda franchise well. With its 27 different titles featuring fantastical fantasy adventures and head scratching puzzles, there have been nearly 52 million copies sold within the iconic franchise. The copy sold on Friday is quite special because there's only one variant that surpasses it in seniority. That's the first copies of the game that were sold during the initial production phase in 1986: the NES TM. Selling one of those would be enough to make even more of a fortune than this record breaking auction.
"I had a lot of confidence in this game, and, yet, I still feel like the reality of today's bidding exceeded my vision of how it would play out. Making history is never an easy thing," Heritage Auction's expert in video games explains in a statement.
Sources: The Verge, Heritage Auctions, CNN