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Three First Print Copies of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow Sell for $2 Million in Second-Largest Video Game Transaction Ever
Three unopened, first-print copies of the original Pokémon Blue, Red and Yellow Game Boy cartridges have sold for a combined $2 million (approximately £1.57 million), in what is being described as the second-largest graded video game transaction on record. The sale, brokered by collectibles firm Nostalgix, went to the owner of the Dubai Collection, one of the world's most prominent video game and trading card collections, and underlines how far the market for pristine retro physical media has grown.
Each cartridge was graded by PSA, a leading third-party grading authority, achieving near-perfect scores of 9.8 for Blue and a flawless 10 for both Red and Yellow, making them the highest-graded first-print set of the games ever recorded. The deal ranks just behind a single Super Mario Bros. cartridge that sold for $3 million in June, though that record was later overshadowed by the discovery of 97 pristine Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt copies in a Wisconsin warehouse, five of which also scored a perfect 10. Nostalgix founder Nathan Howerton said the sale reflects growing recognition of rare, high-grade games as collectibles on a par with valuable comics, trading cards and sports memorabilia, particularly as the industry moves further towards digital distribution, exemplified by Sony's plan to end physical game production from January 2028.
In short
- Three graded first-print Pokémon Game Boy cartridges sold for $2 million.
- PSA gave them near-perfect to perfect condition scores (9.8, 10, 10).
- It's the second-largest graded video game sale, behind a $3m Mario cartridge.
Explained simply
Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow were early games in Nintendo’s Pokémon series, released for the Game Boy in the 1990s. Players explored a fictional world, caught creatures called Pokémon and trained them to compete. The games helped establish a franchise that later grew to include more games, cards and films.
Collectors value old games for their rarity and condition, especially copies that remain sealed and come from an early print run. PSA is a company that assesses collectibles and gives them condition grades; higher grades generally make an item more desirable to some buyers. Grading provides a shared way to describe condition, though it does not set an item’s value.
The market for collectible video games overlaps with markets for comics, trading cards and sports memorabilia. Physical copies can be especially significant to collectors as games are increasingly sold digitally, without a cartridge or disc.