An unique prototype of Nintendo’s Tremendous Famicom, Japan’s (superior) model of the SNES, was up for public sale with current bids pushing the gray piece of gaming historical past north of $3.2 million. Then, earlier right now, the public sale was abruptly pulled offline, doubtlessly over fraudulent bids.
The prototype on the market on Yahoo! Auctions Japan differed from the ultimate system in few other ways. Probably the most notable is a fire-engine crimson energy button on the entrance as a substitute of the darkish gray one Nintendo ultimately went with. The experimental model additionally had a headphone jack and a quantity dial on the facet, in addition to an enlargement port on the entrance as a substitute of beneath the console.
The Tremendous Famicom prototype is what individuals would have seen in magazines forward of the console’s 1990 launch. It was a window into the long run as current followers twiddled their thumbs on the NES earlier than making the 16-bit leap to next-gen hits like Tremendous Mario World. “I believe this has excessive nostalgic enchantment as a result of all of us spent so lengthy watching these prototypes and dreaming of a time we might lastly purchase this wonderful new Nintendo,” Digital Eclipse editorial director Chris Kohler wrote on Twitter.
Whereas the worth began within the mere lots of, it’s now jumped nicely past what anybody appeared to count on. “I’ve had my eye on this because it was round $800 and figured I’d be keen to pay as much as like 10 grand for it,” tweeted localization specialist John Ricciardi. “It’s now over $640,000 lol.” Lower than 24 hours later, the worth solely continued to spike, reaching over $3 million earlier than the public sale was immediately pulled offline.
Evaluate that potential value to the legendary Nintendo Play Station prototype from again when the Mario maker was working with Sony on a next-gen console with a disc drive. That piece of {hardware} by no means got here to be as the 2 firms famously went their separate methods, and that window into an alternate gaming historical past went for simply $360,000 a number of years in the past in 2020.
With an finish date of Could 12, the Tremendous Famicom prototype public sale nonetheless had a number of days left to go. At this level it it’s unclear if and when the piece can be re-listed, and if it should truly find yourself being one of many most costly gaming collectibles ever or not.
Replace 5/8/2024 11:15 a.m. ET: Added details about the public sale being pulled.
