The rivalry between Mario and Sonic goes back for decades, but even one of Sonic’s creators was stunned to see the blue hedgehog apparently giving chase to Mario in a whole new realm: that of outrageously priced video game auctions.
As noted by Eurogamer, Yuji Naka, former head of Sega in-house development crew Sonic Team, was stunned to see that a copy of 1991’s Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis had sold at auction for a lofty $430,500. In his surprise, Naka repeatedly asked his Twitter followers whether the auction price was a scam. He also seemed to express hope that Sonic might legitimately earn such a stratospheric sum, saying in one tweet, “I wondered if it was time for Sonic to reach a high.”
🦔What's this https://t.co/U6BkQaWgHz
— Yuji Naka / 中 裕司 (@nakayuji) September 21, 2021
Naka had good reason to be skeptical that the cart had actually earned such a high valuation. The Sonic cart in question was rated by vintage video game grading and certification service Wata Games. which is currently facing controversy due to reported conflicts of interest and suggestions that it colluded with Heritage Auctions to artificially inflate the retro game market (both Wata Games and Heritage Auctions have denied this). However, this high-rolling Sonic the Hedgehog auction was run not by Heritage but by Goldin Auctions. No information about the buyer is known.
Source: Kotaku