Back in April, we told you about a sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros. that fetched the hefty sum of $660,000 at auction. At the time, we wondered how long this record would stand, and as it turns out, it didn't take long for the record to be broken. Today Heritage Auctions announced that it has sold a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda for nearly one million dollars.
Unlike Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo has never been big on backward compatibility, preferring that people buy their hardware and games if they're still around. Of course, its oldest consoles no longer are and it has found a way to capitalize on that with its Switch Online subscription service that grants access to classic NES and SNES titles that now number over a hundred when taken together.
Owning a Nintendo Switch doesn't only mean having access to the latest and greatest of Nintendo's games portfolio. Thanks to the magic of emulation, it actually also means having access to dozens of games made for gaming systems that retired decades ago. That is, of course, if you're willing to pay the monthly price for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. The good news is that the list of old-school titles is growing bit by bit, this time adding four more from Nintendo's golden age years.
Nintendo is serving up a new handful of SNES and NES games for Nintendo Switch Online, and if you've been paying attention to the last couple of batches, then you should already know what the headliner is this time around. Nintendo is rounding out the Donkey Kong SNES trilogy with this incoming slate of games, adding Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble to the Switch Online lineup of retro titles.
Every once in a while, we catch wind of classic video game auctions that wind up fetching seriously impressive sums of money. Today, we're hearing about one that is perhaps more impressive than any other video game auction that came before it: a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 that sold for a whopping $156,000 at auction over the weekend.
Nintendo has announced a new smattering of SNES and NES games that will soon be heading to Switch Online. Chief among these fresh arrivals is Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest. Back in July, we saw the original Donkey Kong Country added to the lineup of SNES games available to Switch Online users, so it seems that Nintendo's goal is to slowly add the entire Donkey Kong Country trilogy to the service.
Nintendo doesn't seem to be having the best of times this year when it comes to security. Following the hack of hundreds of thousands of Nintendo accounts back in April, the company experienced another data breach in May, this time yielding a massive amount of source code for many of its old games and consoles. While the gaming industry is still coming to grips with the full repercussions of this leak, some more enterprising individuals have apparently put in the work necessary to use that source code and build what they claim are prototypes of some of Nintendo's earliest franchises, including Super Mario, Star Fox, and even Legend of Zelda.
Throughout the first half of this year, LEGO and Nintendo have been trickle releasing information about their new LEGO Super Mario sets. It turns out that Super Mario isn't where LEGO and Nintendo's team up ends, as the two companies today announced the LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System. As the name suggests, this new LEGO set will have you building an NES, its accompanying controller, and even a retro '80s TV all out of LEGO bricks.
A Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) original game console LEGO set was leaked. This set looks to roll with several exclusive parts, including a Mario JUMP flat brick and several 1-peg pieces - like a turtle shell and a mushroom. There's a one-brick flat mystery block too. With this set, you'll be able to create all sorts of different scenes from the original game - and expand beyond the original, too.
Another month, another batch of classic Nintendo games being made available to the new generation of gamers. Nintendo has been dutifully filling up its roster of titles from the bygone NES and SNES eras but a few fan favorites are still noticeably missing. The company is starting to fill in those gaps with this month's additions, finally bringing one of the two most iconic gorillas in the world to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.
Despite how gaming advocates push for the image of games as more than just pointless pastimes, the gaming industry as a whole has been terrible at recording and keeping its own history (ironic given its use of save game systems). This threatens to deprive future generations of the fun and sometimes ludicrous games of the past and, hopefully, learn from those. Fortunately, console makers have started bringing their old titles back to life and none of the current big three has a history more vibrant and varied than Nintendo as evidenced by the more than 80 classic titles now available on the Nintendo Switch.
It has become almost a common practice for console makers to turn back time slightly and give players access to games from the past. In Nintendo's case, it goes back way into the past, back to the glory days of the company. Of course, some might argue that one could always relive that time with an emulator and some questionably acquired ROMs. Few of those, however, would be able to add some modern gaming conveniences, like playing a decades-old multiplayer game with someone far, far away.