Vintage 'Super Mario Bros' video game fetches Dh418,000 at auction

The pioneering game was released in 1985 for Nintendo's NES console

The front of an unopened copy of a vintage 'Super Mario Bros' videogame that sold for $114,000 at auction. AP

An unopened copy of a vintage Super Mario Bros video game has been sold for $114,000 (Dh418,665) in an auction that underscored the enduring popularity of entertainment created decades ago.

A bidder, who wished to remain anonymous, snapped up an early version of the pioneering Super Mario Bros game released in 1985 for Nintendo's NES console during an auction conducted on Friday by  Heritage Auctions, which is based in Dallas, US.

The $114,000 price eclipsed Heritage Auctions' previous record amount for a video game, which was a $100,150 bid made early last year for an unopened copy of the same game.

“This unopened copy of this [Nintendo] launch title soared to record heights in part because it was part of one of the short production runs of the game packaged in boxes with a cardboard hangtab underneath the plastic, an indication that it was part of one of the first variants produced after Nintendo started using shrink-wrap to seal the games rather than stickers,” Heritage Auctions said of the packaging.

The Super Mario Bros copy that sold for a new record was part of a collection of video games from the 1980s and 1990s that sold to various buyers for nearly $700,000, which was well above Heritage Auction's initial target of about $500,000.

Other titles sold at the auction included Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! a 1987 video game based on the former heavyweight boxing champion, that sold for $50,400.