Someone has effectively exchanged a game originally worth just $25 for $3 million by way of a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This copy of Super Mario Bros. has broken a number of records, and likely left the original owner extremely pleased at the result of its time at auction.
While not every game is destined to become collectible, those who are patient and have games carefully tucked away somewhere safe can sometimes turn those into a significant profit. In the past, auctioned games have sold for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending upon their condition and rarity. However, this new accomplishment leaves all of them in the dust.
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Super Mario Bros Sells for a Whopping $3 Million at Auction
On June 12, a copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES successfully sold for $3 million USD at Heritage Auctions. The stunning feat was due to the game being in excellent condition, and for being an extremely rare copy. When sold separately back in the day, Super Mario Bros. sold for $25, which would be worth about $77 today due to inflation. This particular copy of Super Mario Bros. featured the gloss sticker seal, rather than a matte sticker or shrink-wrap sealing the game box, making it a second production copy.
What’s That Weapon?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Only three sealed copies of the game with this particular sticker seal are known to exist, and the $3 million copy that just sold is in the best condition of them all, with a PSA 9.6 A++ grade. It was previously estimated that a maximum of 10,000 copies with this particular seal ever existed, and potentially as few as 2,000. As a result, even finding one in poor condition would be a difficult task 40 years on from Super Mario Bros.‘ original release.
While the sale is remarkable, this isn’t the first time that Super Mario Bros. has broken records like this. One of the aforementioned gloss sticker seal copies of Super Mario Bros. broke records in 2019 when it sold for six digits, while a differently-packaged version of the same game ended up selling for $660,000 just two years later. That record was ultimately beaten that same year by The Legend of Zelda, which sold for $870,000, and many more records have been established since. However, this new $3 million sale means that Super Mario Bros. has taken its crown back, and become the most expensive game ever sold in the history of video gaming.
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Learning that someone spent seven digits on a video game may be stunning, but it’s far from the only instance of game fans spending tons on their favorites. Outside of copies of video games, things like Pokemon TCG cards have racked up millions of dollars in sales, with a rare Pikachu Illustrator selling for $1.4 million earlier in 2026, and a Logan Paul-owned copy of the same card selling for $16.5 million. Meanwhile, a seller put one of the Space World 2000 GameCube prototypes on sale for $100,000, which, while historical, doesn’t actually contain any internal components, so it doesn’t function as a real console.
- Released
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November 17, 1985
- ESRB
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E For Everyone
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo R&D4
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
