Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 (NES)

The original Nintendo Campus Challenge was a video game competition sponsored by Nintendo and held at fifty plus college campuses throughout the United States back in 1991.

Similar to the more widely known Nintendo World Championship, the contest consisted of three timed games and an overall score. Players were given 6 minutes and 21 seconds to collect 25 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3, score 100,000 points Pin*Bot and then play Dr. Mario until the time expires. The final score is then based on the Super Mario Bros. score times ten, plus the PinBot score, plus the Dr. Mario score times 100.

To date, there is only one known original copy of the 1991 Campus Challenge cartridge in existence. It was discovered by Rob Walters (jollerancher) at a garage sale in 2006. After buying a lot of games that included five Starfox Super Weekend SNES cartridges, he picked up a ton of stuff the ex Nintendo employee still had lying around in his attic. Not only did he get the NES NCC, but a SNES Powerfest 1994 cart, Earthbound 0 Proto, Nintendo World Championship Gray and lots of other truly unique stuff.

Eventually, it was sold privately for $14,000.00, and then resold three months later via eBay for $20,100.00 (US).

I’m mentioning it now because the latest owner has expressed interest in selling it, and it currently accepting offers. He has yet to list on directly on eBay, but plans to do so at some point if he doesn’t receive a pricensiders reasonable. As of posting he has what he considers two “solid” offers, but both are significantly less than what he paid.

One issue to any perspective buyers is that it was reproduced and presumably easily available if you want to download the ROM (I haven’t checked).

Historically, when a one of a kind or unreleased game becomes dumped, we see a massive price reduction if it is later resold. I asked the seller if he thought the release of the game publicly would affect the current value of the original. His response was basically “I am not sure but I don’t think so because people would still want to own the original media.”

I am inclined to agree – somewhat. Case in point is the Nintendo World Championship Cart. While a rom was available for years, it is only within the recent past that physical copies were reproduced. Once that happened, there was very little (if any) impact to the prices of originals.

Problem is the price point however. There is a very limited collector market for games that climb above $10,000 and some that I know personally place a very big premium on games that remain undumped (making a digital copy of the game). Knowing the price it sold for prior to being released, I can’t see them paying close to the $20,000.00 from last time.

Then again it is truly unique and one of a kind, has an amazing history (both the contest and the find) and finally is an awesome game to play. Those are three very strong selling points. Given some of the crazy things I’ve seen over the past year, I cannot honestly speculate on what kind of price this will eventually pull.

If you’re interested, you can email the seller (pooch) here.

*EDIT*

Now Listed On eBay.