A copy of Super Mario Bros. just sold at auction for a record-breaking $3 million, making it the most expensive video game of all time.
Heritage Auctions announced the sale Friday, confirming that the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 9.6 A++ copy of the Nintendo game that kicked off Mario’s platforming adventures had passed the previous $2 million record set in 2021. It’s also nearly double the price someone paid for a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 that same year.
As noted by Heritage, this is the earliest confirmed sealed copy from Super Mario Bros.’s second production run, which featured a very specific gloss sticker upon its release in early 1986. That makes this a 40-year-old item that appeared almost out of nowhere – and in great shape.
“It is only appropriate that the most significant video game in the world should bring the more impressive result in the history of the hobby,” Heritage consignment director for video games Evan Masingill said in a statement. “The remarkable back story — it was just discovered a few months ago inside a brand-new Control Deck NES console bundle, meaning it has not been touched for nearly 40 years — makes the result even more impressive.”
In its description of the item, Heritage refers to the $3 million PSA 9.6 A++ copy of Super Mario Bros. as “the holy grail of video game collecting,” and it’s easy to see why. Bolstering its incomprehensible price is the pristine condition recorded by PSA, as well as the fact that it is in the best shape of three known sealed copies from the same run. The others sport a grading of Video Game Authority (VGA) 80 and Wata 9.4 A++. The $3 million collector’s item is also the first sealed copy to appear in a public auction.
As a comparatively small but still neat bonus, the buyer was also awarded a launch edition NES Control Deck console. It’s the unopened hardware that came bundled with the aforementioned copy of Super Mario Bros., though it’s not exactly worth $3 million on its own.
For more on the world of collecting, read about a Fortnite copy that sold for $42,500 just a few months ago. You can also read about a Superman comic book that sold for $6 million in 2024, and another that sold for $9 million in 2025.
Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).