Young gamer lists rare copy of NES Zelda hoping for "something like $15,000 or $20,000," sells it at auction for $288,000 after scrupulous eBay users informed him "what I had"

News
By published

These kindhearted people are the real heroes of Hyrule

The Legend of Zelda NES copy
(Image credit: CGC Video Games/Heritage Auction)

An incredibly rare, sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda has sold for $288,000 at an auction, but for a short time it was listed on eBay for a fraction of that price.

Per a press release, after a young gamer going by Kiro listed what he understood to be a rare copy of The Legend of Zelda on NES, hoping for "something like $15,000 or $20,000," several kindhearted people reached out to let him know it was actually the rarest and most desirable variant - a true first production sealed copy. Kiro then took the listing down from eBay and took it to Heritage Auction, where it sold for $288,000.

While it's certainly a staggering amount to pay for a single video game, this is far from the highest price fetched for a video game at an auction. In fact, in 2021, a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda sold for $870,000 at Heritage. And according to Nasdaq, the highest amount ever paid for a video game cartridge was an eye-watering $2 million for an original, sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. on NES.

The reason this story stands out to me is because the seller originally had no idea just how rare and desirable his cartridge was, and narrowly avoided losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a much less scrupulous viewer of his eBay listing. It's honestly life-affirming to hear, "within minutes of listing it I had multiple people getting in touch with me to ask me if I knew what I had," when they could've easily just paid the asking price and made a bundle themselves. 

It's never a bad time to play some of the best NES games ever.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.