[h2]Cartridge[/h2]
For the competition, 116 special game cartridges were manufactured. 90 of these copies exist in a grey cartridge and were given out to semi-finalists in the 1990 NWC. The other 26 are gold-like the
Legend of Zelda cartridge-and were given out as prizes in a separate contest held by
Nintendo Power magazine.[sup]
[1][/sup]
Both versions of the cartridge feature
DIP switches on the front, which may be used to alter the time limit. To play the cartridge, one must have a controller connected to both controller ports and press start on the second player's controller. For the competition, there was a special switch that would start all cartridges simultaneously.
Reproductions of the game cartridge have been produced by an outside company for sale to consumers, but the reproductions are created so as to be clearly distinguishable from authentic NWC cartridges.[sup]
[2][/sup]
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[h3][
edit] Collectible Value[/h3]
The
Nintendo World Championships 1990 game cartridge is considered to be the rarest and most valuable NES cartridge released, promo cartridges aside.[sup]
[3][/sup] The NWC Gold cartridge is often compared to "holy grail" items from other collectible hobbies, such as the
T206 Honus Wagner baseball card,
Inverted Jenny postage stamp or
Action Comics #1 comic book, and the gold variation has in fact been nicknamed "the holy grail of gaming" or "the holy grail of video game collecting".[sup]
[4][/sup][sup]
[5][/sup][sup]
[6][/sup]
On March 18th, 2007 a listing appeared on
Myebid.com in which a gold cartridge appeared to have been inadvertently included in a bereavement sale of 24 NES games; according to the auction, a father was selling the possessions of his deceased son. The auction ended at $21,400,[sup]
[7][/sup] though collectors have speculated that neither the listing nor the bids were legitimate.[sup]
[8][/sup][sup]
[9][/sup]
To date, of the 26 NWC gold cartridges produced, only 12 copies have ever surfaced. In 2008, a gold cartridge went for $15,000,[sup]
[1![0]](/styles/default/xenforo/NTemojis/alien.gif "Alien 0]")
[/sup] and the most recent copy to surface sold in June 2009 for $17,500.[sup]
[6][/sup]
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[h2][
edit] Games[/h2]
Officially, a player has 6 minutes and 21 seconds to play in the contest, which is divided up into three minigames. The first minigame of the competition is to collect 50 coins in
Super Mario Brothers. The next minigame is a version of
Rad Racer where players must complete a specialized Nintendo World Championship course. The final minigame is
Tetris and this lasts until time expires. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula:[sup]
[11][/sup]
- Super Mario Bros. score
- + Rad Racer score times 10
- + Tetris score times 25
Some players focused their tactic on getting a high score in Tetris while others tried to exploit a trick in Super Mario Brothers where a part of the game may be played repeatedly using warp pipes.
The first two games were modified so that a player could not get a "game over." In
Super Mario Bros., the player was given 99 lives, and in
Rad Racer, the in-game timer was permanently fixed at 99 seconds.[sup]
[11][/sup] In
Tetris, however, stacking a line of blocks over the top of the playing field would effectively end the game prematurely, as the player could not start again-the game would freeze at the "game over" screen until the 6:21 competition time ran out.
Pressing the 'reset' button during either Rad Racer or Tetris would take the player to the point add-up screen.
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