A seller had tried to sell a copy of his gaming collection. But he greatly overestimated the price.
What game did he want to sell? The young player from California, who calls himself Kiro, listed a copy of the very first Zelda game on eBay, which Nintendo developed in 1986.
- In The Legend of Zelda, players take on the role of Link. The title was released for the NES console and has been re-released several times on the Virtual Console of subsequent Nintendo consoles over the years.
- Link collects more and more items and heart containers during his adventure, which make him stronger. To obtain them, he must face the challenges in the dungeons.
- The famous line ‘It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this’ originates from this Zelda game.
Why did Kiro want to sell his game for such a high price? Regular copies of the game are currently being sold on eBay for prices up to 500 euros. However, Kiro knew that his sealed copy was from the first edition and therefore demanded around 19,000 euros for the game as a direct purchase. But he was made aware that the game is even more valuable.
In the latest installment of the series, we don’t play as Link anymore, but as the eponymous princess:
First edition of Zelda is worth even more than thought
What was so special about it? Within minutes, several users reportedly contacted Kiro. Among his messages were many warnings, as he recounts:
“Within minutes of posting the item, several people reached out to me and asked if I knew what I had.”
Because: Kiro had the rarest and most valuable variant of The Legend of Zelda. He owned the true first production of the game. From the very first production batch, there were only three copies, and one of them was in Kiro’s possession.
One interested party reportedly even offered to drive to him directly and bring him 28,865 euros in cash. By that point, the seller realized how special his game really is and canceled the direct purchase.
What price did he end up selling it for? He commissioned Heritage Auctions to sell it, which fetched him a sum of 277,000 euros. So he was lucky in misfortune that there were friendly players who made him aware of his rare copy.
Shigeru Miyamoto was primarily responsible for the very first Zelda game. He confessed in an interview that he almost removed a character from Ocarina of Time because it was so annoying: The creator of Legend of Zelda found a character just as annoying as you did and even wanted to delete it
