A Perfect Copy of One of the Most Important SNES Games Just Sold for $100K (and It Isn’t Mario)
Record-breaking video game auctions have been coming thick and fast in the last few years, with many SNES games selling for hundreds of thousands. In many cases, the running theme of these sales has been the inclusion of Nintendo mascot Mario, whether in his original solo game appearance or one of the several variants to have been released in the early years of Nintendo’s flagship consoles. A recent Goldin auction switched things up a little last week, when a classic 1992 cartridge that has been called the “most important SNES game of all time” sold for an $85,000 bid, with a final price of $103,700 with buyer premiums included. Rather than featuring the ever-popular plumber, this auction was actually for a factory-sealed copy of the classic Capcom fighting game, Street Fighter II, and it had very good reason for commanding such a sum.
This particular example of Street Fighter II comes with a flawless PSA 10 grading, the highest possible for anything that has been officially graded. While there are many games come up for sale with high gradings, finding one with a perfect 10 is very rare and that instantly sets a number of collectors on a mission to add it to their collections. The PSA has only graded 195 copies of Street Fighter II, and this “Made in Japan” variant is one of just three to have ever achieved a 10 grading. The game has the added appeal of being regarded as one of the greatest and most influential video games ever released. After debuting on arcade machines in 1991, the console release saw it become one of the most popular SNES titles selling over 6.3 million copies in total and leading to a surge in popularity of the fighting genre and a whole generation of imitators and replicants over the last three decades.
Street Fighter Is Back
The timing of this recent sale comes when Street Fighter is back in the spotlight with a new blockbuster movie heading into theaters next month. After the success of the Mortal Kombat franchise, it was only a matter of time before Street Fighter returned to screens for the first time since the heavily panned 1994 version, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. This time around, Legendary Pictures is throwing a lot of weight behind the reboot and has enlisted a huge cast including Jason Momoa as Blanka and Andrew Koji as Ryu. Just like the recent Mortal Kombat II, the film appears to be focusing on capturing the exact look and feel of the games and not worrying too much about the ridiculousness of it all.
This is another example of how video games have been seeing a renaissance recently. Two Super Mario Bros. movies have brought Nintendo’s mascot to a new audience in Illumination’s big budget animated movies, which follow in the wake of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Mortal Kombat II saw moderate success in cinemas and became a huge streaming hit on HBO Max, and later this month Zack Cregger brings a new vision to the Resident Evil franchise, which is expected to be another hit for the Weapons director. If Street Fighter attracts the same audience as the Mortal Kombat movies, then we are likely to see more coming in the future. In the meantime, the $100,000 sale of Street Fighter II has proven that the legacy of the fighting game is very much alive and well, especially when it comes to pristine copies that could be the grail of any collection.