Friday, February 26, 2010

Most Expensive Game Ever Sells For $41,300

Most Expensive Video Game

Stadium Events has officially taken the crown as the most expensive video game ever sold. A sealed copy of the NTSC version of Stadium Events sold on ebay for $41,300!

This is more expensive than Nintendo Campus Challenge which sold for $20,100 or Nintendo World Championships Gold which sold for $21,400. The two previous record prices.

The seller of the game lives in Olathe, Kansas and had purchased the game brand new at a Richmond Gordmans, a department store in the midwest, for $29.99. They never opened it after they realized it needed a power pad to play. They never got around to returning it either (maybe the smartest decision they ever made).

The seller had a total return of 137,568% or 37.9% per year on this "mistaken" Stadium Events purchase. That's a better return than Apple, Microsoft, or almost any other investment you could make at the same time.

See historic Stadium Events prices and PAL Stadium Events prices. See other expensive Nintendo NES games

Most Expensive Video Game Side

15 Rare Nintendo NES Games | Most Expensive NES Games

Most Expensive Nintendo Games
Some of the most rare and expensive games ever are from the Nintendo NES. Below is a list of the rarest and most expensive Nintendo games and what makes them so valuable.

The list is ranked by highest recorded sales price per game.

Click for Prices For All Nintendo NES Games


Stadium Events

Stadium Events NES PricesNew Price: $41,300 Used Price: $1,000
An auction for a sealed copy of Stadium Events set a record for the highest priced game ever sold. The game was released in a limited number of stores in 1987, but Nintendo bought the rights to this Bandai game so they could release it as World Class Track Meet. This is considered to be the rarest of the licensed NES games with only an estimated 200 copies in existance. Don't confuse this with the PAL version (see below) which is not as rare but looks very similar. You can use a Stadium Events version guide to tell them apart.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991

Nintendo Campus Challenge NES PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $20,100
In 1991 Nintendo held a video game tournament at college campuses across the country. For the competition they created a cartridge which had three games on it, Super Mario 3, Dr. Mario, and PinBot, and a 6 minute time limit. Only one of these is known to exist and was found at a ex-Nintendo employee's garage sale. The game sold on ebay this past summer for $20,100.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Nintendo World Championships Gold

Nintendo World Championships Gold PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $18,000
Considered to be the "Holy Grail" of game collecting by many, it is no longer the most expensive video game or even the most expensive Nintendo game. Nintendo gave away 26 of these gold cartridges after the 1990 Nintendo World Championships (see below). The game cartridge has Super Mario, Tetris, and Rad Racer on one cartridge and gives players a combined score for all three games after playing for six minutes.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Nintendo World Championships Gray

Nintendo World Championships Gray PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $5,500
The gray version of Nintendo World Championships is not as rare as the Gold version, but still sells for more than $5,000. Nintendo held a video game competition in 1990 to determine the best Nintendo players in three different age groups. The winner in each age group and each city was given a gray cartridge as a prize so only 90 of these exist today.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Myriad 6-in-1

Myriad 6-in-1 NES PricesNew Price: $5,000 Used Price: $985
Myriad 6 in 1 is a collection of six games on one cartridge. Myriad bought all the remaining 6-in-1 cartridges from Caltron (see below) as they were going out of business. Myriad then changed the sticker on the front and added a unique serial number to each cartridge. The game was unlicensed by Nintendo and there are thought to be fewer than 100.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Stadium Events PAL Version

PAL Stadium Events NES PricesNew Price: $4,000 Used Price: $990
The European version of Stadium Events is not as rare as its American counterpart, but is still an expensive NES game. The PAL version was released in multiple languages so some versions have English wording, while others have German or even Dutch. The game isn't as rare because Nintendo never recalled it like they did with the NTSC version.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Caltron 6-in-1

Caltron 6-in-1 NES PricesNew Price: $1,775 Used Price: $860
Caltron 6-in-1 is an unlicensed game for the NES and is notoriously bad. All six games are of very low quality and this helped limit the number of games sold. Caltron Industries shut-down as a video game publisher after this game came out and it is the only game they ever released. The six games on the cartridge Cosmos Cop, Adam and Eve, Magic Carpet 1001, Balloon Monster, Porter, and Bookyman, are all take offs on other popular NES games.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Peek-A-Boo Poker

Peek-A-Boo Poker NES PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $1,300
Peek-A-Boo Poker is another unlicensed game for the NES, but it is also adult rated. The game is basically strip poker on the NES with female characters on the game removing clothes if you win. The game was made by Panesian, the same publishers who made Bubble Bath Babes and Hot Slots, which are two more pornographic games you will see lower on this list.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Bubble Bath Babes

Bubble Bath Babes Nintendo PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $725
Bubble Bath Babes is an adult version of Tetris with bubbles. You arrange bubbles of similar colors so they are touching and they disappear. The game was produced in very limited quantities and were sold in VHS style boxes instead of the usual NES game box. Very few of these ever sold because it was only sold through Video stores, and not game stores.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Cheetahmen II

Cheetahmen II NES PricesNew Price: $870 Used Price: $650
Cheetahmen II is a sequel that was never officially released. It was completed by it's developer but never sold. In 1997 all 1,500 of the games were found in a warehouse and sold in the secondary market. The game has so many bugs that it considered almost unplayable. In-spite of its poor quality it will still fetch more than $600 on a regular basis.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Hot Slots

Hot Slots Nintendo PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $550
Hot Slots has you play a slot machine on the NES but at certain times during the game pixelated woman without much on will show up on the screen to say something. The game was only sold through mail-order to video stores and for obvious reasons was never licensed by Nintendo for the NES.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Punch-Out Special Edition

Punch-Out Special Edition Nintendo PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $415
A gold version of Punch-Out for the NES. 10,000 copies of the game were made and given out as part of a Nintendo Golf competition in Japan. The game is for the Famicom in Japan. The special editon was actually released before any other version of Punch-out and doesn't even have Mr. Dream or Mike Tyson as the final fight. Super Macho Man is the last character in the game.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Mr. Gimmick

Mr. Gimmick PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $200
Mr. Gimmick was came out in Japan as Gimmick and Europe as Mr. Gimmick. The European version is the rarer of the two. The game plays like a traditional platformer but is notoriously difficult. The Electronic Gaming Monthly reviewed the game in their American magazine so it was thought it might come out in the US, but the game was never released stateside.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Flintstones Surprise at Dino Peak

Flintstones Surprise Dino Peak PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $170
Surprise at Dino Peak was the second Flintstones game for the NES but it came out three years after the Super Nintendo released. Most gamers had moved away from the original Nintendo so the game sold poorly, which makes it quite rare today.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Devil World

Devil World NES PricesNew Price: NA Used Price: $150
Devil World was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and published by Nintendo, but is still a rare game. Devil World plays very similarly to PacMan but depicted the Devil and other religious symbols. Because of this Nintendo never released the game in North America, which makes it the only game designed by Miyamoto that didn't come out in the USA.

See Historic Prices | See Ebay Listings

Other Expensive Nintendo Games



See What Your Games Are Worth

Click for Prices For All Nintendo NES Games

See a list of the most expensive video games of all time

VGPC.com has daily updated prices for every NES game and most NES consoles and accessories. Our NES price list includes more than 780 games. See Prices For All NES Games

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Save $32,000 on Sealed Stadium Events

Earlier we posted about a sealed Stadium Events on ebay, it is going for $39,900 right now. This auction has received tons of publicity and been written about it hundreds of video game blogs because it is new.

The auction title states specifically that it is "Sealed" & "New" and even uses a sub headline to say a second time that it is sealed. Six letters S-E-A-L-E-D might be worth $32,000.

There is another Sealed Stadium Events that is on ebay right now too but hasn't gotten as much publicity. The listing doesn't say "New" or "Sealed" in the title but the pictures all show it is new and the description says its new too. AND it is the NTSC version.
Second Sealed Stadium Events

I'm sure bidding will increase on this second auction too but I bet it will end lower than the first one because it doesn't advertise what it is. I almost feel bad for the seller.

UPDATE: THIS EBAY LISTING IS PROBABLY FRAUDULENT

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Nintendo Media Summit 2010

Super Mario Galaxy 2


Nintendo had a Media Summit today to announce their release schedule for the first half of 2010. Nintendo is one of the top publishers when it comes to their games maintaining resale value.

Here are some of the games announced:
  • Monster Hunter Tri (April 20)
    • Bundle w/ Classic Controller - $59.99
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (May 23) - See trailer below
  • Sin and Punishment 2 (June 7)
  • Metroid: Other M (June 27)

Nintendo DSi XL


Nintendo also announced a new piece of hardware in the Nintendo DSi XL. It will be priced at $189.99 and feature screens that are 93% larger than the DS Lite.

Though this is hardly new considering it's been out in Japan for a few months, it's nice to know when it's coming to North America.

Welcome to Violence - Sega Wii Bundle

Welcome to Violence Wii
Sega is releasing a mature games bundle for Australian Wii's. It's called "Welcome to Violence" and includes "The Conduit", "House of the Dead Overkill", and "MadWorld".

The price is right too. Only $110 Australian dollars which is about what a new Xbox 360 or PS3 game costs in the land down under.

I played all three of these games when they released stateside but any Australian readers out there should definitely pick this up if they haven't tried these games yet.

If Sega does release this in the US I might be tempted to buy it because of the cool name and box art. Plus bundles make great collectibles.

From Kotaku

Saturday, February 20, 2010

User Survey: PC and Mac Games

We recently added a small selection of PC games and Mac games to our site (about 200 games for each).

We can work on adding more but there are tens of thousands of PC and Mac games which is no small task to add them all. We will do it if our users are interested, but will spend the time adding other features instead if there isn't much interest.

Leave a comment below letting us know if you are interested in the PC and Mac game sections and if we should add more games to the list.

Halo 3 ODST Should Increase in Value Before May 3



When it comes to getting gamers excited for a new game in a series, there is no company better than Bungie. Their Halo games seem to set new sales records with every new release and they tend to keep their value and popularity quite well.

The next Halo game, Halo Reach, is set to release this upcoming holiday season with promises of new characters, levels, enemies and weapons. Before then, Microsoft plans on releasing a multiplayer beta for the game on May 3. The catch, you’ve gotta have a copy of Halo 3 ODST to be enlisted in the beta.

So what does this mean exactly? We should see the resale price of Halo 3 ODST increase leading into May. We’ll have to check in on ODST in a few months to see if we were right.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Factory Sealed Stadium Events NTSC

Sealed NTSC Stadium Events
There is a factory sealed NTSC version of Stadium Events on ebay right now. The bidding is already at $10,000 and with the recent Stadium Events hysteria going around the auction will probably close much higher.

Let's watch the madness continue. At least it isn't people paying $5,600+ for a PAL Stadium Events. That is true madness when it was selling for about $1,000 less than a year ago.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Stadium Events Version Guide | NTSC vs PAL

There are tons of stadium events auctions on ebay after an auction for Stadium Events and 4 other NES games sold for $13,105. Many of these auctions are for a game that is not that rare!

There is a NTSC Stadium Events which was released in the USA and quickly discontinued and is the more expensive version. There is a PAL Stadium Events too, which was released in Europe and is not as rare or expensive. Below is a buying guide so you know how to tell which Stadium Events version is which and don't get ripped off.

Stadium Events NES Version Guide PAL NTSC

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NTSC Stadium Events: Expensive Version


The NTSC Stadium Events is the more valuable and more rare version of the game. It sells for anywhere from $1,000 for just the game and $13,000 for the complete game with the box and instructions. Here's how you tell if the game is NTSC.

1. "Stadium Events" is written on one line on the cartridge
2. Nintendo Seal is a circle on the box and on the cartridge
3. The words on the packaging are always English (some PAL versions are English too)


See historic NTSC Stadium Events prices

PAL Stadium Events: Cheap Version


The PAL Stadium Events is still a fairly rare game and pretty expensive too, but not compared to the NTSC Stadium Events. The PAL version sells for about $100 for the cartridge only to about $1,000 with the box and instructions.

1. "Stadium Events" is written on two lines on the cartridge
2. Nintendo Seal is oval shaped on the box and cartridge
3. The words on the packaging might be in German, Dutch or another language


See historic PAL Stadium Events prices

Wii Games on Sale at Amazon.com


Amazon is doing a sale on Wii gamesGold Box Sale today only, February 16th.

It is part of their Gold Box promotion where every couple of hours a new item goes on sale. Right now Walk It Out is 33% off (I know, not a favorite game among VGPC readers). But earlier in the day Beatles Rock Band was on sale and there are seven more sale Wii games through-out the day.

Hopefully they will have some really good sales later in the day, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a sale on Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. Please Amazon!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

30 Rare Atari 2600 Games | The Most Expensive 2600 Games

The Atari 2600 was the first ultra successful home video game console. It is the console that started gaming for many people. During its life-cycle the Atari 2600 had thousands of games released. Some of them were good and some were horrible. Most are ridiculously cheap but a few 2600 games have become rare collectibles. The list below is the most rare and expensive Atari 2600 games.


Click to see Prices For All Atari 2600 Games


Most Valuable Atari 2600 Games

Air Raid

Expensive Atari 2600 GamesUsed Price: $13,900 | CIB Price: $33,400 | See Current Prices

Air Raid is the only known game released by Men-A-Vision and has a very distinctive cartridge design with a blue 'T' shaped handle. In the game you must protect a city from invading alien ships. You try to destroy them before they destroy the city.

Air Raid is believed to be the rarest of the commercially released games for the Atari 2600. The cartridge by itself usually sells for $3,000. Only two copies are known to exist with the original box. One of them sold for $31,600 in April 2010 and the other for $14,000 in 2012. There is only one known complete version with the manual too.

Red Sea Crossing

Expensive Atari 2600 GamesUsed Price: $13,800 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Red Sea Crossing wasn't even known in the Atari community until 2007 when it was found at a garage sale. It is a Christian game and was only sold via phone order. The only known ad for the game was in Christianity Today.

Red Sea Crossing is the most expensive Atari 2600 game when it is cartridge only, by about $10,000. Air Raid sells for more when it comes with a box.

Birthday Mania

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $6,500 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Personal Games created Birthday Mania as a custom birthday gift for Atari owners. The buyer would custom order the game with the recipient's name on the title screen and a space on the label to write their name.

The concept never gained traction. Because the items had to be special ordered and were not mass-produced, the game is very rare. Only two copies are known to exist. This game has never been sold publicly so the price is an estimate but the highest known offer to buy was $6,500.

Gamma-Attack

Rare Atari 2600 GamesUsed Price: $6,000 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Gamma Attack was the only game released by Gammation. It's rarity rivals that of Air Raid with only two known copies in existence. You control a Gamma ship and must destroy enemies as they enter your planet.

The game has never sold at a public auction so the exact price is hard to know. The price listed is based upon offers that one of the owner's claims he has received. It is a very reasonable estimate considering the game's rarity.

Karate [Ultravision]

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $2,000 | See Current Prices

Karate for Atari 2600 was released by two companies, Froggo and Ultravision. The Froggo version is quite common and sells for hardly anything. The Ultravision version is very rare and sells for top dollar.

Ultravision has two versions of Karate, a T-shape cartridge (pictured to the left) and a standard shaped cartridge. Both have the same artwork on the front and sell for roughly the same amount.

Pepsi Invaders

Valuable Atari 2600 GamesUsed Price: $800 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Pepsi Invaders was a custom designed game for Coca-Cola. They took the Space Invaders game concept and changed the aliens to letters spelling "Pepsi". The game was given to executives at a sales convention in 1983.

Only 125 were originally produced. Based upon the number of sales for this game it is assumed that the vast majority were destroyed by the recipients.

Mangia

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $700 | CIB Price: $1,500 | See Current Prices

Mangia was developed by Spectravision and like most Spectravision games it was only available via mail order. The mail order distribution method made all their games much harder to find than ones available at retail stores. Mangia is the rarest of their games.

In Mangia you control a boy who eats pasta until his stomach explodes. To avoid dying you throw pasta to a dog or cat, but must avoid your mom seeing you waste food.

Eli's Ladder

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $650 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Eli's Ladder is an educational game for the Atari 2600. You count and do addition and subtraction games and drills. The game was released by SimAge.

The game was originally packaged with a wall chart and motivational stickers to help motivate kids to learn and play. These are even more difficult to find than the game.

Lochjaw

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $600 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

The game Shark Attack was originally released with the name Lochjaw. Apollo decided to change the name after they were sued for infringing on the copyrights for Jaws the movie. Because the game was only released for a limited time with this name and cover art it is very hard to find today.

The game play is almost the exact same as Shark Attack. You try to collect diamonds in each level before a sharks eats you and before he eats too many of the diamonds too.

Gauntlet

Rare Atari GamesUsed Price: $600 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

Gauntlet is another mail-order only game for the Atari 2600. This one was released by Answer Software. It has nothing in common with the dungeon crawling game with the same name. In this game you must prove your manhood to an ancient Indian tribe by running through their gauntlet of obstacles.

The game was originally sold in a foam case with no box so this game is never found with a "box" like most games.

Atlantis II

Valuable Atari GamesUsed Price: $510 | CIB Price: $5,000 | See Current Prices

Atlantis II is a special edition of the original Atlantis that was only given to a few gamers as part of a contest. The developers held a national contest to crown the best Atlantis player. Numerous people reached the maximum score in the game so in order to crown a champion they mailed entries with the maximum score a new version of Atlantis that is much faster.

The exterior of both Atlantis games looks the exact same. The easiest way to tell the difference is by looking at the font on the high score. In order to know which version a newly submitted high score came from the developer changed the font.

The Music Machine

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $500 | CIB Price: $6,000 | See Current Prices

The Music Machine is a Christian video game based upon a series of products with the same name including, CD's, coloring books, and movies. You play as two children who must collect the Fruits of the Spirit - love, kindness, self-control, patience, etc - as they fall down the screen.

The game was only sold through Christian bookstores. Its limited distribution makes the game very rare today.

River Patrol

Atari GamesUsed Price: $500 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

River Patrol is based upon the arcade game with the same name. You must navigate a boat down a river while avoiding obstacles.

The exact reason for the game's rarity is unknown, but is more than likely due to the game releasing after the great video game crash in 1984. After this point, Atari plummeted in popularity and games for the console sold very poorly.

BMX Airmaster [Atari]

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $260 | CIB Price: $NA | See Current Prices

BMX Airmaster was originally published by TNT Games and is quite common. You race on various tracks and half-pipes with a BMX bike. Near the end of the 2600's life, Atari bought the rights to the game and re-released a limited number of copies.< /p>

The Atari re-release is the expensive version. You can tell which version you have by looking at the cover art. If the cover art on the game matches the cover art on the box at left, you have the rare version.

Out of Control

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $200 | CIB Price: $600 | See Current Prices

Out of Control is a spaceship flying game released by Avalon Hill. You control a spaceship that must fly through buoys, pops balloons, and then land in a space station.

This is another game that was the victim of the video game crash in 1983. Publishers severely limited their production after the crash to make sure they didn't waste money on cartridges that wouldn't sell.

All Xante Games

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $200-1,000 | See Current Prices

Instead of selling cartridges with a permanent game inside, Xante decided to make re-writable cartridges. They setup kiosk where you could return your games to have them rewritten as another title. They even printed a plain white label for you with the name of the new game.

The Xante games are Alien, Beany Bopper, Crypts of Chaos, Demon Attack, No Escape, and Solar Storm. All six games are extremely rare.



Rare Non-Games for Atari 2600

The cartridges below are not games in the sense that you play them. They are most of utilities for the Atari. All the non-games work in the Atari 2600 and they are all very rare.

Video Life

Rare Atari 2600 GamesUsed Price: $1,200 | See Current Prices

Video Life was an Atari program with Conway's Game of Life built in. You created an initial state of "life" - a series of dots - and then watched as they took on a life of their own.

The game only worked if you already owned the rare MagiCard programming tool (see below). This severely limited production and sales of the game.

ECPC Cartridge

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $500 | See Current Prices

Similar to Xante games, the ECPC cartridges are re-programmable cartridges but they all started off blank. You would buy the cartridge and bring it to any ROMOX software center and choose a game from their selections.

Copy Cart

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $300 | See Current Prices

Another blank cartridge that allowed you to change the game on the cartridge. This time you need a hardware called a "Duplicator" in order to transfer a game.

The game with the Duplicator is extremely rare, but without it the cartridge could just be a collector's piece if a game was never transferred onto it.

Color Bar Generator

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $230 | See Current Prices

The Color Bar Generator does exactly what it's name implies. It would create 15 different color bar patterns to diagnose TV color or alignment problems.

The item was sold so consumers to diagnose problems themselves without needing a technician. One of the patterns was designed to test the color producing circuits on the Atari system.

Magicard

Expensive Atari GamesUsed Price: $200 | See Current Prices

MagiCard is a programming tool released by CommaVid. The cartridge came with a 100+ page instruction booklet and sample programs explaining how to use the software.

The software was only available via mail-order and only worked with the keyboard accessory for the 2600.

Other Rare & Expensive Atari 2600 Games



Rare But Relatively Inexpensive Atari 2600 Games



Click to see Complete Atari 2600 Price List Games


The list is ranked by the highest average new price and then highest average used price in the event of a tie.

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