Someone spent $1.56M on a copy of Super Mario 64 instead of just, like, downloading it

Last Friday, a sealed copy of the original Legend Of Zelda went up for auction, selling for $870,000 and earning the title of the most expensive video game ever sold in the process. Then, because the world’s collectors have too much money and too little sense to just buy a copy of either game on their Switches, that record was broken by someone spending $1.56 million on Super Mario 64 yesterday.

Uproxx covered both of these stories, describing how Heritage Auctions sold some wealthy dope an unopened copy of 1986's The Legend Of Zelda for $870,00, which beat out last April’s record of $660,000 for a Super Mario Bros. cartridge. While this is already an absurd way to spend a sum that could be better used to, say, buy approximately 20,000 copies of a much better game, like Disco Elysium (or around 87,000 Steam keys for the wonderful Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days), the collectors continued to throw money at other auctions.

Yesterday, in a second celebration of Italian excellence, a sealed Super Mario 64 went for a staggering $1,560,000—the plumber knocking poor Link from his perch and making his Nintendo 64 debut the most expensive game ever sold. We’re not going to do the math on it, but that money definitely could’ve been more wisely spent on a downloadable version of the game and a few thousand copies of Kentucky Route Zero or the 2016 Doom with lots left over.

We suppose the lesson to take away from all of this is to never play any video game you buy in the hopes that a lifetime of withholding will eventually yield riches beyond your imagination. And no, it’s definitely not a good idea to play with your Pokémon cards while sitting in front of your darkened TV to pass the time either.

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