Unopened Super Mario Bros Sells for $600K in Texas Auction

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I can't believe Super Mario Brothers keeps selling for crazy amounts of money year after year. This time, an unopened copy of Super Mario Brothers has sold for over half a million dollars. Why??

Mario & Luigi debuted in the arcades around 1983-84. I still remember seeing Mario Brothers at the old Six Flags arcade in Gurnee, Illinois. By 1986, Super Mario Brothers were heating up in Japan and its creators were ready to help bring the Nintendo Entertainment System into kid's bedrooms across America.

Did you have a copy of Super Mario Brothers, or did you have the SMB/Duck Hunt combo that was known as the Nintendo Action Pack? Yes! Who didn't have one by 1990? I can literally remember losing hours and hours to Super Mario Brothers when it first came out. It took forever to make it to the end of the game, never mind discovering the minus world. (Am I remembering that correctly?)

So in Dallas, Heritage Auctions sold a copy of the game in its original packaging to a buyer who has withheld their identity. Previous copies of the game have sold for $100,000+ many times. CBSlocal.com reports that this is NOT the only unopened Super Mario Brothers that have sold at auction before, but the others have never gone for so much beyond the expected auction estimates. The game did not get nearly as much when it sold on an episode of Pawn Stars years ago.

For so many kids Super Mario Brothers were the beginning of a love for video games. It may not have been your favorite game (neither was Duck Hunt), but it was the game that introduced you to NES. Soon there was Zelda, Metroid, and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. $h%t, even my Dad would stop and play that one with us. Ah, the good old days. Maybe that is how these games get close to earning $600K. They go all the way back to the beginning of many fan experiences.

What happens if the owner wants to open the game and play it and it doesn't work? (It's been in a box for 35 years.)