A Sealed Copy of Super Mario 64 Sold for a Record $1.56 Million

The year 2021 has been a great year for collectors of rare video games—and for those looking to rake in a hefty profit by selling them.

On July 12, an unopened copy of the 1996 Nintendo game Super Mario 64 was sold by Heritage Auctions for a staggering $1.56 million. The extremely rare video game cartridge broke the previous record for a single video game sale—which had been set just two days earlier with the sale of an unopened, 1987 limited-production run of The Legend of Zelda, another Nintendo game that went for an impressive $870,000 as part of the same Video Games Signature Auction.

Super Mario 64's impressive price tag was not completely surprising, as it was the launch title for the Nintendo 64 and became one of the console's bestselling games. It also was the first game in the series to feature a 3D Mario. According to Heritage Auctions, the unopened Super Mario 64 scored a 9.8 A++ Wata score, meaning it's in near-perfect condition. This is not the first time the Dallas-based auction house has sold a rare video game. As AP News reported, in April, they auctioned off a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for $660,000.

Video games are a hot commodity. According to Polygon, earlier this year, a Goodwill in Texas auctioned off a rare Atari 2600 game called Air Raid for $10,590.79. Along with the sale of The Legend of Zelda game on July 9, Heritage Auctions also sold a copy of Final Fantasy III for $96,000. A 1991 version of the game Super Mario World, a 1987 copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, and a sealed 1986 black box version of Gumshoe also hit the auction block that day.

While the chances of another video game selling for north of $1 million seems unlikely, there are a number of rare video games that might fetch you a pretty penny. Which means that now might be a good time to rifle through your old stash of games and see if you have anything that might be worth parting with.

[h/t AP News]