"Super Mario 64" sells for record $1.56 million at auction

A copy of revolutionary 1996 classic "Super Mario 64" sold for $1.56 million at auction on Sunday, a record for video games.

Why it matters: Prices for boxed copies of games have exploded in recent years.

• The "Mario" game was part of a nearly 500-item auction sold by Heritage Auctions, which doesn't even have a bona fide gaming category yet.
• Heritage graded that copy of "Mario" as A++, noting "the condition of this copy is just so breathtaking that we're really at a loss here." So even if you still have the game in its shrinkwrap, your copy probably has more dents in the box.
• An A+ version of the game sold through Heritage in January for $38,400.

By the numbers: Other notable sales from Heritage's auction included...

• A sealed early copy of the "The Legend of Zelda" for $870,000
• A sealed copy of "Super Mario World" for $360,000
• An early copy of the first "Tomb Raider" for $144,000

More recent games sold well, though not quite as well:

• A copy of 2011's “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” for Xbox 360 went for $600.
• A copy of 2010's "Red Dead Redemption" for Xbox 360 sold for $384.

Someone even bought an early-90s U.S. Army training device that amounts to a replica M16 that can plug into a Super Nintendo.

• That sold on Friday for $18,600.

Flashback: Classic games expert Chris Kohler called it a "retro game gold rush" back in 2019, as collector money that used to go to comic books, coins and cards moved to video games.