Amin Abbas
DUBAI: An unopened cartridge of Nintendo’s NES classic ‘The Legend of Zelda’ dating back to 1987 has been sold at an auction for about ¥95 million Yen (or $870,000.)
An anonymous bidder won the cartridge after Heritage Auctions started the bids at ¥11 million Yen (or $100,000.) This sale made this cartridge the most expensive game cartridge sold to date & broke the world record of Nintendo’s original Super Mario Bros., which sold for ¥72 million Yen (or $660,000) last April.
This version of the original ‘The Legend of Zelda’ game, described in the listing as a “true grail among games,” is notable for its age.
“This is the only copy from one of the earliest production runs that we’ve ever had the opportunity to offer,” Heritage stated in the description, and that production run only lasted a handful of months.
According to Heritage, the cartridge was a rare variant of the original run called “Rev-A” and was produced for only few months in 1987 before being replaced on store shelves with another variant called “Rev-B.” The cartridge auctioned off was part of Nintendo’s “NES R” run and was preceded by only one other variant called “NES TM” which was the first ever production run for the title.
Heritage also believes that a copy of the elusive “NES TM” exists but it may never be brought to market, making this cartridge the only one of its kind and the earliest production copy of the game that anyone can get their hands on.