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Rare NES cartridge worth $13,000 traded in to Seattle game shop

Holy grail of collectible retro-games emerges and is sold in 24 hours.

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Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
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The sudden appearance of a copy of the rare Nintendo World Championships 1990 stirs the retro-gaming rumor mill.

 Josh Miller/CNET

A Seattle used-game store has reported buying -- and quickly selling --  a copy of a rare NES game. Pink Gorilla Games said Wednesday that a private seller traded in a copy of Nintendo World Championships 1990 along with a bag of other NES cartridges. Only a few hundred copies of the sought-after collector's item are thought to exist.

"Just traded in! Not joking," the company tweeted Wednesday. The company later tweeted that it paid $13,000 for the game.

The pictured cartridge also included serial number "0302," indicating a higher number of copies than previously discovered. In a YouTube video, Pink Gorilla Games co-owner Kelsey Lewin explained her confirmation of the cartridge's authenticity.

Nintendo World Championships 1990 were originally produced for the competitive touring event the same year, and were also given away to winners of a Nintendo Power magazine contest.

Pink Gorilla Games said it sold the cartridge to a private buyer within 24 hours but did not disclose the price.

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