Million Dollar Mario...1.56M...What the..?

[Tanooki | 4,939]

5, 6, 7...8 digits?

At this rate all things considered, the answer to anyone doing this damage both on the cause and effect end just deserve ONE digit.

[jonebone | 1,307]

18 hours ago, GPX said:

On the one hand you’re basically saying there are shenanigans going on. On the other hand, you’re making a conclusion based on the same shenanigans. 

My take is that, we can conclude that the next Mario 9.8 A++ will be anywhere between 6 to 7 digits. But then it could go for 5 or 8 digits.

Not necessarily shenanigans, this is just exactly what happens when you list high grade and desirable in a drought.  The magnitude of the jump is crazy but this happens time and time and time again.

Just look at Matte Sticker CIB Mario in average shape (Wata 5.0 to 6.0).  Went from $50ish pre Wata hype to $25k as first to market on Certified Link last summer.  (Which btw, wasn't an HA sale, for all of the HA gossip here.) As a percentage, that's a far worse jump than Super Mario 64.

It's pulled back a lot and where is the value?  Still in the mid 4 digits easily, $5k plus or minus with most owners probably not considering anything less than $10k unless they absolutely needed the money.  Those days of sub $100 or even sub $1000 for an acceptable condition Mario Matte CIB are long gone and never returning.

And same here.  If you find a Mint and already graded Super Mario 64 (Wata 9.6 or higher, VGA 90 or higher), I think you'll be hard pressed to find one under 6 figures ever again.  Sure you can take gambles on raw, or find a good deal well below market value if you're resourceful, but a well listed and graded Mint copy is just always going to be in demand.

People are all up in arms about the number of dollars here, but these percentages gains and drops happen all over, and all the time.

Edited September 20, 2021 by jonebone

[GPX | 1,370]

2 hours ago, jonebone said:

Not necessarily shenanigans, this is just exactly what happens when you list high grade and desirable in a drought.  The magnitude of the jump is crazy but this happens time and time and time again.

Just look at Matte Sticker CIB Mario in average shape (Wata 5.0 to 6.0).  Went from $50ish pre Wata hype to $25k as first to market on Certified Link last summer.  (Which btw, wasn't an HA sale, for all of the HA gossip here.) As a percentage, that's a far worse jump than Super Mario 64.

It's pulled back a lot and where is the value?  Still in the mid 4 digits easily, $5k plus or minus with most owners probably not considering anything less than $10k unless they absolutely needed the money.  Those days of sub $100 or even sub $1000 for an acceptable condition Mario Matte CIB are long gone and never returning.

And same here.  If you find a Mint and already graded Super Mario 64 (Wata 9.6 or higher, VGA 90 or higher), I think you'll be hard pressed to find one under 6 figures ever again.  Sure you can take gambles on raw, or find a good deal well below market value if you're resourceful, but a well listed and graded Mint copy is just always going to be in demand.

People are all up in arms about the number of dollars here, but these percentages gains and drops happen all over, and all the time.

I don’t think people are up in arms because of the huge number of dollars at play, but a combination of these factors:

- a huge spike in a very short amount of time (100+ times more than probably what it was going for pre-HA sales)

- such high bids without any concrete knowledge of pop reports

- too many regular news articles pointing out the rising prices, but the high end buyers are basically all new players into the scene - that isn’t a reflection of an organic price rise. 

I think it’s great the collecting scene has been injected with such life and so many new people coming into the scene. Though at what cost, and “what is OMG?” vs “what is BS?”, it’s worthy to evaluate on an ongoing basis.

Also it’s worthy to ponder on what is “market value”? The amount a collector is willing to pay? Or the amount it might go for in an online auction, that won’t be replicated if sold anywhere else? 

[Gulag Joe | 584]

The scarcity is definitely a big factor. I spent some time the other day looking at only SNES games that sold 1 million or more copies, and out of that list, there are only a few titles that have still not seen at least one HA listing in factory sealed condition. Titles that come to mind are Final Fantasy VI, Dragon Quest V, Dragon Quest VI, and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. That's only SNES and HA, so those games may have been listed on other auction sites. Some of those are SF games, so I guess the one US title that sticks out the most is Griffey. You'd think Goldin would've had one of those!

[OptOut | 8,889]

Shawn Reserved Investments laying the SMACK DOWN on the chump that paid 1.56 million for Mario 64! 

Excellent stuff!

[Californication | 1,477]

14 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Shawn Reserved Investments laying the SMACK DOWN on the chump that paid 1.56 million for Mario 64! 

Excellent stuff!

Obviously no one told him Mario 64 is the greatest game ever made.

[Gloves | 11,794]

4 minutes ago, Californication said:

Obviously no one told him Mario 64 is the greatest game ever made.

Of ALL TIME!

[Gulag Joe | 584]

15 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Shawn Reserved Investments laying the SMACK DOWN on the chump that paid 1.56 million for Mario 64! 

Excellent stuff!

Though I like his videos, and though he prefaced that the SM64 game sale does not represent the market as a whole, he went on to base his entire argument on comparing that drop to Atari games and their known abundance.

There were other games in that last auction that overly exceeded expectations.

I personally would not have spent that much for SM64. I think Goldeneye, Mario Kart, or Smash Bros. would be the more appropriate game for that type of sale, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder...of millions in disposable income.

I think we will see a few more copies go up for sale, but after about a year or so they'll begin to dry up again. The price might not go up that high again, but I bet it would get close eventually. 5 years from now every billionaire will want to own a copy of the million dollar video game.

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

18 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Shawn Reserved Investments laying the SMACK DOWN on the chump that paid 1.56 million for Mario 64! 

Excellent stuff!

VGA is getting pop reports out soon, supposedly,  and once that happens WATA will have to do something, I'd think. There's already a huge shift away from WATA and the only way to right that is to actually become a respectable business and share the fucking information. This is assuming they actually have the intention of continuing on as a reputable organization. I mean, how else do you bounce back from the HA allegations? Where's the positive PR campaign??

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

5 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Though I like his videos, and though he prefaced that the SM64 game sale does not represent the market as a whole, he went on to base his entire argument on comparing that drop to Atari games and their known abundance.

There were other games in that last auction that overly exceeded expectations.

I personally would not have spent that much for SM64. I think Goldeneye, Mario Kart, or Smash Bros. would be the more appropriate game for that type of sale, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder...of millions in disposable income.

I think we will see a few more copies go up for sale, but after about a year or so they'll begin to dry up again. The price might not go up that high again, but I bet it would get close eventually. 5 years from now every billionaire will want to own a copy of the million dollar video game.

But... the second sale already dropped 50%, so if that keeps up by the time you get to the 5th copy it'd be going for 100k... (which is still stupid af btw). If there were just 5 that held that grade. Maybe WATA will start dinging SMB 64 games just to keep them at 9.6 or under

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

11 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

VGA is getting pop reports out soon, supposedly,  and once that happens WATA will have to do something, I'd think. There's already a huge shift away from WATA and the only way to right that is to actually become a respectable business and share the fucking information. This is assuming they actually have the intention of continuing on as a reputable organization. I mean, how else do you bounce back from the HA allegations? Where's the positive PR campaign??

Wata just proved they can net you $400,000 with nothing but their brand name. They don't need to do shit to compete with VGA, lol.

[Gulag Joe | 584]

14 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

But... the second sale already dropped 50%, so if that keeps up by the time you get to the 5th copy it'd be going for 100k... (which is still stupid af btw). If there were just 5 that held that grade. Maybe WATA will start dinging SMB 64 games just to keep them at 9.6 or under

Maybe. The scenario I see is this:

Poor broke gamers who own copies in 9.8 a++ and need the money will sell now. The people investing in them will sit on them for 5,10,20 years. Once the poor broke gamers copies have been sold, I don't see anyone taking 100k for it. They'll have it buried with them in their coffins before that happens. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

On 9/19/2021 at 10:22 AM, Californication said:

"collector"

Beat me to it, lol!

15 hours ago, Tanooki said:

5, 6, 7...8 digits?

At this rate all things considered, the answer to anyone doing this damage both on the cause and effect end just deserve ONE digit.

Hey, hey, hey!  There is no limit to the number of digits we could be talking about!  Ye of little faith!

...because, c'mon, everybody knows there's no limit of numbers to the right of the decimal point...

[Caliboy24 | 47]

Not surprising at all that the Goldin copy sold for well below the Heritage copy.  It was already predicted by the majority on here I believe.  The real winner of the Heritage copy was the underbidder who most likely won the Goldin copy for half the price .  We'll see what happens in the next Heritage copy where there's quite a few up in different grades..  Likely see a drop in prices some more.

[AdamW | 713]

there's no 9.8/A++ (or, obviously, VGA 95) in the HA auction, so it won't be a direct comparison. Since the silly money market for this game is so new it'll be hard to draw any clear conclusions from a 9.6/A++ sale.

I'm gonna predict it sells quite 'high', though. Bold prediction: it'll go for around what Goldin's VGA 95 went for.

[GPX | 1,370]

3 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Beat me to it, lol!

Hey, hey, hey!  There is no limit to the number of digits we could be talking about!  Ye of little faith!

...because, c'mon, everybody knows there's no limit of numbers to the right of the decimal point...

I think @Tanooki was referring to the one digit, middle digit, middle finger.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

40 minutes ago, GPX said:

I think @Tanooki was referring to the one digit, middle digit, middle finger.

Man, and here I thought the most possible was...DE DOUBLE DEUCE!

(PSHHHHHHHHWWWWWWWWWW)

[OptOut | 8,889]

8 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

I think we will see a few more copies go up for sale, but after about a year or so they'll begin to dry up again. The price might not go up that high again, but I bet it would get close eventually. 5 years from now every billionaire will want to own a copy of the million dollar video game.

Oh yeah, because Billionaires have literally nothing better to do with their time and money than shoveling it into a hype-hole firepit like sealed N64 games! BILLIONAIRES! 

This stuff is GOLD, please, never stop coping dude, I am LOVING THIS!!! 

7 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Maybe. The scenario I see is this:

Poor broke gamers who own copies in 9.8 a++ and need the money will sell now. The people investing in them will sit on them for 5,10,20 years. Once the poor broke gamers copies have been sold, I don't see anyone taking 100k for it. They'll have it buried with them in their coffins before that happens. 

Sealed Mario 64 market right now:

[sp1nz | 613]

8 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

The scarcity is definitely a big factor. I spent some time the other day looking at only SNES games that sold 1 million or more copies, and out of that list, there are only a few titles that have still not seen at least one HA listing in factory sealed condition. Titles that come to mind are Final Fantasy VI, Dragon Quest V, Dragon Quest VI, and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. That's only SNES and HA, so those games may have been listed on other auction sites. Some of those are SF games, so I guess the one US title that sticks out the most is Griffey. You'd think Goldin would've had one of those!

You can't just look at overall sales numbers and equate them to a single region or a country unless the game released in a single region or a country. Also Final Fantasy VI was released as III in America and Dragon Quest V and VI never had American releases for the SNES. Super Famicom versions never came sealed in Japan so you'd be talking about "qualified" Japanese graded games for the exact RPGs you mentioned, not about anything that could have a seal grade anyway. No clue why Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball hasn't shown on HA though.

FF III SNES on HA past sales:

https://www.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=0+790+231&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=final+fantasy+iii+snes&ic4=KeywordSearch-A-K-071316

Small FF VI (III) comment on USA sales:

https://nintendoeverything.com/sakaguchi-says-final-fantasy-vi-didnt-sell-well-in-the-u-s-when-it-originally-hit-the-snes/

[Brickman | 3,995]

5 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Oh yeah, because Billionaires have literally nothing better to do with their time and money than shoveling it into a hype-hole firepit like sealed N64 games! BILLIONAIRES! 

This stuff is GOLD, please, never stop coping dude, I am LOVING THIS!!! 

Sealed Mario 64 market right now:

haha Gulag Joe is amazing. I'm so glad he's here. I disagree with most of what he says, but man his posts make me laugh. Plus it's good to have the extreme on both ends.

I look forward to seeing Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates flashing off their WATA Mario 64's in 5 years time.

[OptOut | 8,889]

Just now, Shmup said:

haha Gulag Joe is amazing. I'm so glad he's here. I disagree with most of what he says, but man his posts make me laugh. Plus it's good to have the extreme on both ends.

I look forward to seeing Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates flashing off their WATA Mario 64's in 5 years time.

Oh yeah, nothing but love for @Gulag Joe he's a good sport!

I mean, presumably HE'S been making a ton of money on games that I will never see, so who's the real winner here? I mean, it's still ME either way, because the yuks I've been having are fucking PRICELESS! 

But, I just hope he can make his money while the getting is good, and not let the hype get the better of him! Be careful out there Joe, honestly!

We have seen the warning signs loud and clear, might be a good time to take stock and heed at least some of the words that have been spoken around these parts the last few months.

[Gulag Joe | 584]

1 hour ago, sp1nz said:

You can't just look at overall sales numbers and equate them to a single region or a country unless the game released in a single region or a country. Also Final Fantasy VI was released as III in America and Dragon Quest V and VI never had American releases for the SNES. Super Famicom versions never came sealed in Japan so you'd be talking about "qualified" Japanese graded games for the exact RPGs you mentioned, not about anything that could have a seal grade anyway. No clue why Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball hasn't shown on HA though.

FF III SNES on HA past sales:

https://www.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=0+790+231&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=final+fantasy+iii+snes&ic4=KeywordSearch-A-K-071316

Small FF VI (III) comment on USA sales:

https://nintendoeverything.com/sakaguchi-says-final-fantasy-vi-didnt-sell-well-in-the-u-s-when-it-originally-hit-the-snes/

I heard there's less than 10 Wata graded Griffeys out there.

[Gulag Joe | 584]

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

Oh yeah, nothing but love for @Gulag Joe he's a good sport!

I mean, presumably HE'S been making a ton of money on games that I will never see, so who's the real winner here? I mean, it's still ME either way, because the yuks I've been having are fucking PRICELESS! 

But, I just hope he can make his money while the getting is good, and not let the hype get the better of him! Be careful out there Joe, honestly!

We have seen the warning signs loud and clear, might be a good time to take stock and heed at least some of the words that have been spoken around these parts the last few months.

You want me to post n00dz so bad! You are right on the ps3 cat calls!

[OptOut | 8,889]

1 minute ago, Gulag Joe said:

You want me to post n00dz so bad! You are right on the ps3 cat calls!

Probably be a good time to realise some of those gains there buddy! 

[Gulag Joe | 584]

Just now, OptOut said:

Probably be a good time to realise some of those gains there buddy! 

I'd have to send it to wata first. Got it fresh for $50 a few years back.

Regardless, the Uncharted Marky Mark movie will be out on VHS by the time I'd get it back. It's certainly in better shape than this one.