Super Mario Bros game from 1985 sells for record-breaking $114,000 at auction

A unique characteristic made the game particularly valuable

An unopened Super Mario Bros game has broken global records by selling at auction for $114,000 (£90,000).

The game stems from 1985, where it was among the first editions to be manufactured by Nintendo.

Kick-starting a franchise of games and a film adaptation, the original game was inspired by the popular arcade game Mario Bros, which had launched in 1983.

Heritage Auctions, based in Dallas, Texas, sold the mint edition game to a bidder who chose to remain anonymous.

The auctioned copy was particularly special as it featured “cardboard hangtabs”, which were attached to game packaging in their earliest test market stages.

As more and more copies of the game were produced, the hangtabs were removed, replaced by plastic wrap.

The copy in question was also graded 9.4 out of a possible 10, meaning it had been kept in near-perfect condition since its manufacturing.

The game was part of a collection of video games from the 1980s and 1990s which sold to a number of different buyers for a grand total of nearly $700,000 (£554,000).

The auctioned Super Mario Bros game now holds the title of the most valuable video game in history, beating another edition from the same batch manufactured in 1985, which was sold at auction for $100,150 (£79,342) in 2019.