A sealed, rare version of the famous Nintendo game “The Legend of Zelda” sold for a stunning $870,000 at auction on Friday July 9, making it the most expensive video game ever sold, according to Heritage Auctions.
The Dallas, Texas-based auction house states this latest sale had easily broken its own previous record for a video game, with the $660,000 purchase of a sealed Super Mario Bros. game which happened in April 2021. The unopened game of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. was bought in 1986 meant as a Christmas gift but forgotten in a desk drawer until it was found this year.
Video games specialist Valarie McLeckie said in a statement, “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. I’m just really proud we got to be part of this yet again.”
The cartridge game came from a very limited production run that spanned only “a few months” in late 1987 before it was replaced in 1988 by the “Rev-A” variant.
The Legend of Zelda is a widely popular Nintendo fantasy adventure game first released in 1986. The series introduces gamers on the various incarnations of Link, a brave young Hylian man with pointed elf-like ears, along with Princess Zelda, a magical princess who is the mortal reincarnation of the goddess Hylia. Together they fight to save the land of Hyrule from the evil warlord turned demon king Ganon. The games mainly feature a mix of action, adventure/battle gameplay, puzzles and exploration.
Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the series, has always said that his inspiration for creating the series came from his own special memories as a young boy exploring caves, lakes and forests surrounding his childhood home.
Image: Heritage Auctions