2023-10-03 08:01:45
In recent years, retro gaming has increased enormously in value and several titles have sold at auction for crazy sums. There are also titles so rare that only a handful of copies were produced. This is the case for “Nintendo World Championships” cartridges.
If video game competitions are very recurrent today thanks to the explosion of esports, there was a time when they barely existed. The competition which is often recognized as being the very first esports event dates from the year 1990 and was organized by Nintendo of America.
The “Nintendo World Championships” were competitions taking place, contrary to what the name suggests, across 29 cities in the United States. Many competitors classified in three age categories then competed against each other by playing various games of the time. The finals took place during the month of December of the same year at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles. The video game giant organized other championships in the same vein until 1994, before reviving the Nintendo World Championships in 2015 and 2017.
During the 1990 tournament finals, competitors each had to play a modified NES cartridge containing three shortened versions of existing games. The first challenge required collecting fifty coins in the first level of Super Mario Bros, the second required taking part in a Rad Racer race, and the final challenge was a game of Tetris. Participants had just over six minutes to complete the three events. The person with the most points over the three games was declared the winner.
This gray cartridge is, today, a true collector’s item for Nintendo fans around the world. However, it is not unique since a copy was distributed to each of the 90 finalists of the tournament. We do not yet know how many copies were produced by Nintendo, however it seems that a certain number of special cartridges exist. Twenty-six additional copies have a gold coating in the style of The Legend of Zelda cartridges.
This second version is often considered the rarest NES cartridge ever produced. Both versions of Nintendo World Championships 1990 sold for several hundred thousand dollars, a price that fluctuates over time and depends on the state of preservation. Several copies are in circulation and sell today for around $20,000. If these two versions are not the most highly rated games, these cartridges remain real treasures and important objects in the history of video games.
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