There are some people who have too much money lying around, and there are some gamers who are too fanatical for their own good.
And then there are those who fit into both categories. Meet J.J. Hendricks, a man who has now spent nearly $30,000 – as much as people in some parts of the country earn in their annual salary – for two (yes, two) Nintendo cartridges.
Hendricks recently paid $12,000 for a vintage Nintendo cartridge titled “Nintendo Powerfest.” It was never sold in stores. In fact, it was never sold, and if Nintendo’s instructions had been followed almost 20 years ago no copies would even exist.
The game was printed specifically for a promotional tournament in 1994. Nintendo shipped around 100 units of the cartridge to various venues for competition.
It isn’t exactly the kind of game you would even want to buy – it gives players six minutes to play through bits and pieces of Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels, Super Mario Kart, and Ken Griffey Jr Baseball. It’s not designed for players to spend hours at a time with.
Apparently, Nintendo told these venues to ship back the cartridges after the competition, at which point they were supposed to be destroyed. But at least one remained intact.
The owner of that copy contacted Hendricks and negotiated an offer of $12,000, which he paid via a huge sack of cash. Why did said owner know to contact Hendricks?
Well, just three years ago he purchased a similar Nintendo cartridge called Nintendo World Championships, for $17,500. That one was even older, dating back more than 20 years.
You can read Hendricks’s full story here.
