The Super Mario Bros cartridge had spent 40 years unopened in its original Control Deck NES Bundle before it emerged for auction. It came from Nintendo’s second production run, dated to early 1986.
PSA authenticated the cartridge and awarded it a 9.6 grade, while its seal received an A++ rating. Collectors know of three sealed examples from this production run, distinguished by a gloss sticker sealing the box rather than a hangtab, and this is the highest-graded of them.
Heritage Auctions offered the cartridge on 12 June 2026, calling it “the earliest confirmed sealed copy of the most important game cartridge in history.” It sold for $3,000,000, the highest price any video game has fetched at public auction.
The result is a striking departure from the market’s recent pattern. A sealed Super Mario Bros sold for $114,000 in July 2020. Within 12 months, record prices rose to $660,000, then $870,000, and then past $1 million before remaining broadly stable for roughly four years. Heritage’s $3 million result nearly doubled the previous high.
The sale is also the first record holder to carry a PSA grade. PSA took over the game-grading operation previously run by Wata Games and began accepting game submissions in October 2025; every earlier record sale had used a Wata grade.
Guinness World Records still lists a 2021 sale of Super Mario 64 for $1,560,000 as the record holder. Three first-print copies of Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow have sold for $2 million.
The premium rests on preservation and scarcity. A loose, unsealed Super Mario Bros cartridge sells for somewhere between $16 and $25, depending on condition. Heritage said its $3 million copy was the finest of the three known sealed examples from its production run.
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