Tag: NES

Posted on

Nintendo World Championships 1990 NES w NWC Controller

Collectors have yet another Nintendo World Championships 1990 cart to drool over. ?These grey carts generally go for between $5,000-6,000, so the eBay seller “vicviper“ pushing the envelope by asking a starting bid of $11,990.90 + ($6.00 shipping…seriously, why even charge it?). While I’m doubting it’ll even get bids for that price, what’s interesting here is the controller included. The seller states that it’s an official controller used during the competition at one of the competition stations. He explains that he begged a Nintendo employee for it after participating in the competition. I haven’t seen one of these controllers before, so it’s worth taking a look. Plus, this guy’s writeup is absolutely fascinating for any collector of old school Nintendo games. Check it out, and happy collecting!

Posted on

Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 — aka Most Expensive Video Game Ever Sold!

A the world’s second most expensive video game just sold on eBay! The ultra rare “Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991” cartridge closed for $20,100. I’d imagine some collector is incredibly happy and most likely very poor right now. Not to mention that JJ Hendricks, the seller of the game and owner of JJGames.com and VGPC.com recouped a bit of money from his big video game splurge earlier this year.

Why so expensive? If you remember from earlier this year, the most expensive game every purchased went for $17,500. That was JJ as well. However in that case, he was making an addition to his collection. JJ managed to track down a gold copy of the “NES World Championships 1990.” While 26 of those gold cartridges were produces, only 12 are still confirmed to be in existence.

So here’s the thing that makes the Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 cart so rare: only one is known to have survived the competition’s destroy-when-the-competition-is-over instructions. Apparently some employee at Nintendo managed to save this one from the axe. Years later it popped up at a yard sale.

$20,100…I can’t say I’d ever spend that much on a game, but I love the ability of eBay to unite us collectors. It was a rare video game collector’s dream to watch this thing jump from $8,500 to $20,100 in the last minute. Thanks JJ for putting it in auction format!

Here’s the last 2 minutes of the auction captured on YouTube!

Posted on

Harmonic + Zelda NES Cart = ?

Long before Guitar Hero and Samba de Amigo, the original Nintendo brought us iconic music in simple but brilliant midi ditties. Not only did our favorite classics have awesome soundtracks, but Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Legend of Zelda tapped into our budding imaginations with magical whistles which later, in Zelda’s case, became the ocarina. The ocarina, a 12,000 year old instrument, eventually morphed into an iPhone app by Smule giving iPhone users the ability to rock out and pretend we’re Link.

As if that wasn?t perfect enough, an eBay seller “nes_harmonica” has continued the trend of NES musical influence by bringing us the 8-bit Nintendo cartridge /harmonica!

Custom Made NES Zelda Harmonica

Custom Made NES Dick Tracy Harmonica

Custom Made NES Mario Brothers 3 Harmonica

Funny enough he’s built the harmonicas, quite appropriately, into a gold cart Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Dick Tracy! I’m pretty sure this is where brilliant meets absurd with brilliant winning. Will we see YouTube videos of people playing their harmonica along with their favorite NES game? Time will tell… (As a disclaimer, I don’t know the seller; however, he was kind enough to give me permission to use his photos. I’m not sure how well these work, but I certainly admire this creativity.)

If you’re more interested in an ocarina on your iPhone than in your NES cart, you can find the Ocarina app and other games at iTunes: All Your Music, All In One Place

Posted on

Reproduction NES Games

Did you know that people are still making original 8-bit Nintendo (NES) games!?

As a NES collector, I can’t believe I discovered this fact just a couple months ago. Sure enough RetroZone, NES Reproductions, and Game Reproductions are still producing rare reproduction games, modded games, as well as some new original titles. Additionally, fans across the internet have been working on finishing original NES games that were in development but that were never finished.

Lucky me! I came across the photographed lot of such games in my treasure hunting. I’m excited to add try these out and to add them to my collection.

Titles in photo are as follows:
(Row 1) Mike Ditka’s Big Play Football, Airball, Pirate Booty
(Row 2) Super Mario Bros. 2, Bomber Mario, The Tower of Radia, Stadium Events, Nintendo World Chapsionship 1990
(Row 3) Chunkout 2, Geminim, Siamond, Sudoku, Mystic Pillars

I have an extra copy of Pirate Booty, which is a reproduction cart containing Hot Slots, Bubble Bath Babes, and Peek-a-Boo Poker (upper right in photo). If you’re interested in it, just let me know.