Welcome to the latest issue of Video Games Insider – FREE VERSION
Today I’m going to look into a copy of Mario Kart 64 that is IPOing at Otis on Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 at 12 PM EST. It is supposed to open for a VIP pre-sale tomorrow, Monday August 16th, at 12 PM EST.
Table of Contents
Mario Kart 64 WATA 9.2 A++
About the Asset
A racing game that anyone who went to high school and college in the late-90s/early 2000s (it was released in 1996) spent way too much time playing, Mario Kart 64 is the 2nd best-selling title of any N64 game, though it was not the original Mario Kart game – that would be Super Mario Kart for the SNES. It’s often ranked in the top video games of all time and culturally speaking, pretty much anyone who has ever played a video game has played some iteration of Mario Kart — it’s still going strong with Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U and then the Switch both proving wildly popular – it is the best selling title for both platforms. In fact – it’s apparently the best-selling racing game of all-time.
This particular sealed copy is graded a 9.2 A++ and is known as the “Red Label” variant — an earlier (and therefore much rarer) variant than the more common “Player’s Choice” variant. From what I can see, the Red Label version has sold for 25x-35x what the equivalent Player’s Choice version would go for. There are a number of Ebay listings that look enticing at first but are for the Player’s Choice variant — don’t be fooled.
About the Drop
This asset will drop on Otis at 12 PM EST on August 17th for $57,900. There is no retained equity. Otis has just introduced live trading so it is unclear what the time between IPO and trading will be going forward.
Add IPO to calendar
Recent Sales and Current Valuation
[Detailed Valuation available to Insiders Only]
Category Strength
The Video Game Cartridges category posted a 12% ROI in Q2 2021.
Subcategory Strength
Subcategory Risk
Past Asset Growth
Growth Outlook and Future Catalysts
I was pretty surprised when Super Mario 64 (briefly) held the record for the highest selling video game, as I didn’t think that N64 games would be as desirable as the original NES or even SNES games. But that shows that there’s plenty of nostalgia and demand for sealed N64 games as well. The one issue that I worry about is that there are just going to be more sealed N64 games than the earlier ones and the more publicity these sales get, the more copies are going to be unearthed from someone’s closet. I do expect the video game market to cool down at some point but it’s been going strong the past few months.
Verdict
I talk a lot about blue-chip assets when I write about video games, and while Mario Kart 64 is not on the top tier, it’s right there in the second tier. It has enough name recognition to appeal to the mainstream collectors who might not even be passionate about video games specifically.
As a side note, a friend of mine brought back his N64 from home a couple years ago and a group of us played a LOT of Mario Kart 64 and it’s still super fun.
