Unopened Nintendo Game Sells For Small Fortune

Get ready to start scouring the garage sales in earnest; there might be some big money to be found in the form of unopened Nintendo Entertainment System games. That’s what one Kansas-based eBay user found out when he sold his copy of Bandai’s Stadium Events for $41,300.

Lucky for him he didn’t give the game to Goodwill as per his original plan to dispose of his set of nearly 200 NES games. After hearing that some people might pay for that kind of stuff, he put a few up on the auction block. It turns out that Stadium Events, especially in its unopened factory seal, is a major collector item… and some collectors want it bad.

It was a demand that the seller hadn’t expected. Identified only as “Dave”, he tells Yahoo that he only kept the game in its original wrapping because he couldn’t play it without the special floor mat controller that Nintendo had sold and quickly discontinued in 1988. Once the mat was off the market, Nintendo recalled and destroyed nearly all of Stadium Events games, so fewer than 200 were actually sold. Today, fewer than 20 even exist.

Dave was one of the few that ended up with the game and no mat. Rather than toss it, he kept the game as part of the collection not thinking that it could translate into big money some day.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call my parents to make sure they don’t throw out my old games.

[eBay via Yahoo!]