A copy of a 1998 Game Boy Pokemon game has auctioned for $81,250 at a Dallas sale. According to the sellers you’ll need $100,000 to interest the game’s new owner.
The game is a Pokémon Red Version.
It has been condition graded by WATA, a rating company, at 9.8 (on a 10-point scale), and with an A++ assessment of the game’s seal.
It’s just about as good as it gets for a game of this age.
The Pokémon Red and Blue versions were released in 1996 by Nintendo for the Game Boy, a hand-held gaming console.
As the first Pokémon video games they have a special place in the heart of collectors.
Heritage Auctions, who handled this sale, said: “This copy’s pristine condition makes it a high point of pretty much any collection. With a bold cover illustration of Charizard by Ken Sugimori and contributions from legends like Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoshi Tajiri, and Junichi Masuda, this is a piece of pure Pokémon nostalgia.”
Hardward and software is now highly valuable. The Zapper gun with this NES made it extra valuable. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
Pokemon is now, according to some sources, the most valuable media franchise in history, bringing in nearly $100 billion over its lifetime.
The series has been running since 1996, when it was launched in Japan. Alongside video games are cartoons, films, and hugely popular collectible trading cards.
All of these media are highly collectible and can realise very high prices.
Heritage’s sale saw three other Pokemon games make big money: a copy of the Blue Version game made over $38,000 and a Yellow Version sold for $30,000. A copy of the later Crystal Version realised over $42,000.
Most buyers are collectors and traders, but you’ll need at least $100,000 to snap up this game from its new owner say Heritage.
The most valuable Pokemon item thus far is a Pikachu Illustrator card that was bought by YouTuber Logan Paul for $5,275,000 in 2022.
That value is something of an outlier, but the top cards routinely make tens of thousands of dollars.
Elsewhere in Heritage’s sale, the second most valuable item was a Nintendo NES game console from 1988 described as a “crown jewel”.
It was sold for $68,750 with buyer’s premium.
