Sealed Super Mario 64 game breaks record, sells for $1.5m at auction

A sealed and graded copy of 1996's Super Mario 64 recently sold for $1.56 million, which makes it the most expensive game ever sold.

The boxed US copy of Super Mario 64 was sold during the Video Game Signature Auction by Heritage Auctions, which was held from July 9 to July 11. Now, before you go ahead and think of pulling out your copy of Super Mario 64 with the hopes of cashing in on it, you might want to reconsider if it's not unopened, graded, and sealed.

One of the biggest reasons for the price of the Super Mario 64 copy was the 9.8 grading by Wata Games, which meant that it was in "Like New" condition.

When you consider that the game has been out on the market for more than two decades, the chances of there being an unopened copy of Super Mario 64 are minuscule. You'd probably have a better chance of winning the lottery. This also only goes to show just how much money some video game collectors are willing to spend just to get something that probably nobody else in the world has.

What is surprising here is how much more expensive the copy graded at 9.8 is compared to the same copy that was graded at 9.6.

Whereas the former was sold for a record-breaking price of $1.56 million, the latter was sold only for $13,200. Not only that, but a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which is arguably just as iconic and influential as Super Mario 64, with the same Wata grading of 9.8, sold for "only" $870,000 at auction, which is almost half the price.

We see two possible explanations for why this extremely rare copy of Super Mario 64 just sold for a copious amount of cash.

The first is Heritage Auctions' recent sale of a 1990 US release copy of the original The Legend of Zelda for $870,000. It might have only been graded at 9.0, but you have to consider the game's age and rarity as well. It's understandable why the copy sold for as much despite not being in as good of a condition.

The second is a sealed Super Mario Bros. copy with a 9.6 rating sold for $660,000 just a few months ago, which could have driven the price of the game even higher.

The thing about collectibles is that you'll never know just how much they can sell for, if they ever will. Just like anything, video games will only sell for how much someone is willing to pay for them. In this case, someone did pay more than a million dollars to secure the mint condition copy of Super Mario 64, but what if no one is willing to buy your collectible?

If you plan on investing a huge sum of money in a Wada-graded rare video game in hopes of making a profit out of it, we recommend that you proceed with caution.

Now, if you are willing to take a risk, the upside is that the demand for Wada-graded video games has only increased in recent years and the bubble is showing no signs of popping anytime soon.

If nothing else, the prices of vintage video games in relatively good condition should only climb. If you happen to be an older gamer with copies of now-vintage gaming titles, we recommend checking out how much they could be worth.