by Camille Larbey
© Diane Al Homsy for the Pastor auction house
With a "Legend of Zelda" cartridge for a Nintendo console fetching no less than $870,000, and a Super Mario 64 cartridge going for $1.56M, gamers dropped their joysticks in surprise at the record-breaking sums achieved at the Heritage Auctions sale in July. Even Nicolas Pastor, an auctioneer from Le Mans, in charge of a retrogaming-themed sale in May, never dreamed of results like these: "I thought it would happen one day, but not so soon." The retrogaming market—playing and collecting old video games—has decidedly moved up a notch.
Initiated by Millon & Associés, the first auction in France (and Europe) entirely dedicated to this specialty only took place in 2013. The highlight of the sale was a Dino Force cartridge designed for the limited-edition PC-Engine console. Only three copies of this shooter game developed in 1992 were released before the production company went out of business. A rare item, then, which sold for €10,000. Click here to read more!
