Nintendo 1990 World Championship Cart For $0.50

Just to chime in here,

It's the difference between owning The Amazing Spider Man #1, or a reprint of the same that came out last year.

Or say, on original Picasso versus a reproduction made in a factory.

(I like the comic book analogy much better.)

 

That's true with Amazing Spider-man #1 because the material which the comic book was printed on has aged has been appraised. So a reprint was in favor with documentation. A Picasso painting would be very difficult to duplicate his style and materials used. Plus the Picasso paintings have also been appraised and documented. But that doesn't fly with a video game's computer program. There was no graphic alterations letting you know you're playing a reprinted version of the NWC game. In fact its the exact code taken from the NWC carts. Certainly, the NWC carts are worth something but nowhere near $10,000. I'm sorry, but the main attraction was dumped and circulated online and downloaded. Hadn't the Roms been dumped for public consumption - it would've been very difficult to refute ANY price of the NWC carts. Its as simple as that.

 

Personally I have never understood the fuss over the Nintendo World Camp' carts. It's not as if they contain rare beta code or unreleased games.

Yakumo

 

Regardless, they are worth a hell of lot more money and what everyone keeps forgetting is the 1990 NWC Nintendo Tournament itself was the biggest video game tournament when Nintendo was at its peak. It was ludicrous. 30 different cities, thousands of people entering each, it was crazy. Even "The Wizard" is essentially the 1990 NWC on the big screen....

 

Have always wondered this myself.... Anyone know?

 

I've seen videos on youtube of SMB being completed while playing a reproduction cart, but I'm not sure if those have the same exact rom data as the real carts.

 

They might not be worth $10,000 to you but there are those with the money to spend who disagree. People vote will dollars not with logic and no matter how strong an argument it means nothing if people are buying them. In cases like this the vote of a person who has the money and is willing to spend it is worth more than the vote of someone who has no intention of buying one. You could have 20,000 people who say it is worth $50 but if another 5 people were waiting to buy it at 10k+ then those 5 have a stronger argument that it is indeed worth 10k+. The NWC has "been worth" 10,000+ on the open market for some time now and it won't be changing anytime soon. The grading of VGA games has brought in a few comic collectors who now collecect sealed games. Many of these new to videogame collectors have the NWC on the wanted list and they are used to speding the bucks to get what they want unlike us cheap gamers.

 

People who can afford super cars aren't always people who know how to drive them, and that's something to keep in mind when evaluating a person's character in accordance to his hobby.

Something is worth whatever the seller is made happy with on that and only instance. I don't believe nor do I think it is necessary to uphold a "previous price" argument when it comes to video games. It's not world-class currency, it's just games.

 

Nah you miss the point. It has nothing to do with the actual game that's on the cart, it's becasue the cart is a piece of history. The "main attraction" is owning the same piece of hardware used in the contest becasue there are only two in existence, not playing the game on them.

 

In your world, i'm missing the point...
That piece of Nintendo history got reduced to shareware, i'm sorry. But from now on its just
speculation over the minds of people with more money than sense. I'm a gamer/collector with sense.
I wouldn't trade any of my experiences in meeting the game creators and having my Nintendo games autographed
for those NWC carts. Now anyone can possess the actual NWC game. That's no fun for me as a collector.
The last NWC Gold auction didn't even reach $17,500. But again, i'm not saying the NWC carts aren't
worth anything - just not as much as when the roms weren't shared to the public.
Its just that simple with me.

 

Sometimes there are private sales with such high priced items, too.
Just like there are with art deals.
There really are some parallels between the high price segment of video game collecting and collecting art.

 

I feel compelled to point out that anyone can own the "actual game" on all of your autographed carts, which leads us to exactly the same point - it's the history of the signed cart that makes it valuable, not the game or the ink.

I say "valuable" but in terms of resale value you'd have to be crazy not to trade some random signed NES cart for a NWC cart. If you wouldn't, that really doesn't say anything at all about the value of the NWC cart.

 

That's right -- Things are only as valuable as the amount people are willing to pay for them. It's the intangible aspect that hikes the price up, not the concrete.

 

Well, you can open up your browser or one of a million art books and look at a picutre of the Mona Lisa, correct? You can even go to a store and buy a lifesize poster of it, or get a reproduciton painting of it, correct?

Why then is the original Mona Lisa still priceless?

It's becasue an exact copy is still not the real thing. Even if I made a machine that manufactured an exact duplicate, down to the molecule of that painting, the one I owned would still be a cheap reproduciton and the original would still be priceless. It's becasue the original is a piece of history, and there is always only one original.

That's why people pay so much for these NWC carts, not becasue they want to play the game. If you simply just want to play the game, then yes go download the ROM, but those carts are still worth money, becasue there are only two of them in existence.

If you're a collector, then you "collect" things, regardless. Doesn't matter if there's a million copies of them. Do you stop collecting NES games becasue all of the Roms have been dumped? Maybe so for some people, but others still prefer to own the originals, for collection purposes. I still fire up my NES to this day (although admittedly not nearly as much as I used to.) The experience is different than just emulating it - you are forced to use more skill when you can't rely on save states.

Anyway, the point is just becasue the Rom has been dumped doesn't mean these carts are now worthless, or that thier value has really gone down much at all. If anything, with each year that passes they appreciate in value.

 

The Mona Lisa comparison is weak.
The whole point of the competition cartridge - it was meant
to be played. You could've had MANY serious gamers/collectors like myself
willing to pay thousands for a Nintendo competition cartridge had it not been distributed
freely like it has. But now that the NWC game been distributed
there's hardly an incentive in having to pay tens of thousands in owning
the dated plastic/PCB the game was housed in unless you're just bored
out-of-your-mind with money to spend.

I could care less how many are in existance now. That used to matter
before the Rom was dumped. I mean, that was the point in having to
avoid dumping the NWC Rom to maintain its exclusivity / mystique .
There you could've applied the "Mona Lisa" or the "Honus wagner"
comparison.

I have other things that are sentimental in value to me like my autographed
gaming collection. I don't wish to sell them because how often do
you get to meet the creative geniues of your favorite classic video games
and have them sign their own work ? Now that's priceless!

But that's just my opinion...Do whatever you want that makes you happy

 

Like I said, it doesn't matter what the game is on the cart. People aren't buying it for the game. You want to play the game, then go download the rom. But the people who are paying $18,000 for this cartridge are not buying it for the game, they're buying to to own a piece of history. Doesn't matter if it was originally meant to be played.

Look at this auction on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-UNOPENED-U...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1e5a03fd58

It's a bottle of Soda, being sold for $24. Do you think the person who buys that soda is going to drink it? Or is he going to "collect" it?

No, it still matters. Becasue the playing the rom and owning the cartridge is not the same thing. There are only two cartridges in existance. If you went and got the rom and all of the original parts from the same manufacturers, and built your own NWC cart, it would still not be the "same" as the real thing. Your cart would still be a reproduction, while the two inexistance would still command an $18,000 price tag.

 

Just for the record there are more than two NWC carts. A lot more.

-hl718

 

The part I don't get is that you insist that the NWC carts are worthless (because it's been dumped) but you consider your signed games 'priceless' (yet they have also been dumped)

This doesn't add up.

Excuse me if I've missed something - I just woke up!

 

Please scroll up and read. I didn't say they're completely worthless. But they're certainly not worth no $10,000 - $17,500 with copies running around freely. I don't care what Wikipedia or even the Guinness Book: Gamer's Edition says.

My signed games ARE priceless because they're not for sale. I never said Yoshi's Island nor
Zelda: OOT are rare titles. But the signed collection is of a sentimental value to me. I feel it doesn't make any sense for someone to purchase my things they had no part of when they got signed. Only I know what it felt like. So I understand people's disconnection with autographed items. Its just a marked item to them.

 

I guarantee that if I offered you $10million you'd sell me that Yoshi's Island cart. To me, though, it wouldn't be worth more than $100. What this demonstrates, that you're apparently having a really hard time grasping, is that different items are worth different amounts to different folks. In this instance you can scream until your voice dries out about how a ROM of the NWC carts makes them not worth [amount x], but the inconvenient fact remains that they are worth over and above the amounts you're talking about to other people - last auction I heard of went to over $20k. So you're wrong, plain and simple.