On June 12, June 13 -- The bidding stopped at $3 million. What it means is something nobody in the room could agree on.

lot 28025 in the Dallas-based house's Video Games Signature event - for the highest price ever recorded for a single video game at public auction. The previous record, also held by a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros., was $2 million, set in 2021. Before that, it was $1.56 million for a sealed copy of Super Mario 64. The numbers move in one direction. Whether they are pointing somewhere real is the question the market still cannot answer.

The copy that sold Thursday carries something most sealed copies of the 1985 Nintendo launch title do not: a gloss sticker seal, rather than the shrink wrap that became standard shortly...