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Animal Crossing has become one of the most beloved gaming franchises across the last few decades, yet there's one rare entry with only 250 copies in circulation that now resells for over $6,000 on the used market.
It's not uncommon for something with low supply to command a high price point, as even the most unpopular of films can be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars if they are rare enough.
You can see this replicated with vinyl and CDs, and gaming is certainly no exception — with that perhaps seen in no place more than the popularity of trading cards, of which one Pokémon collectible recently sold for a record-breaking figure.
Often that rarity isn't always down to what's solely available on the market though, as there are plenty of items that are valuable from the moment they're created due to the limited number of copies produced from the outset.
Among these is a rare version of the very first entry in the Animal Crossing series – known as Animal Forest in Japan – as its developer Nintendo sent out 250 promotional copies alongside a letter, memory cards, and even a calendar to celebrate the release in 2001.
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As you can imagine, having a piece of gaming history alone is enough to command a sizeable amount, yet having one that's incredibly rare as well catapults that value through the roof.
According to reselling website Price Charting, the cost of this promotional copy of the GameCube title ranges from around $1,400 to over $6,000 depending on the condition that it's being sold in, and both the box and manual on their own are valuable enough to be sold for $800 and $500 respectively.
Sales of the game 'loose' – which presumably just includes the disc and nothing else, complete with an ironic 'For Promotional Use Only Not For Resale' sticker – it'll set you back $1,434.
However, a 'Graded' copy, which has had its condition measured by an official company, will cost you $6,609 in total, showing quite how much people are willing to pay to own something this rare.
It'll likely only grow in value over time too, so who knows what it'll be worth in five or ten years when copies are presumably even rarer.
Looking at all of the Nintendo products on Price Charting, two in particular stand out as the most valuable — and they're worth considerably more than the aforementioned Animal Crossing copy despite its rarity.
Both are presumably worth as much as they are due to their rarity and desirability for collectors, and coincidentally both have a graded price of around $175,000 in total.
First up is Clay Fighter Sculptors Cut for the Nintendo 64, which 'only' has a new price of $20,000 but that jumps up considerably when it's graded to become the most valuable Nintendo product overall.
Regardless of condition, however, there's nothing that can beat Family Fun Fitness Stadium Events for the NES, as while its graded price is around $750 lower than Clay Fighter, it has a new price of $158,402 and a loose price of $19,000.
Even just the box is enough to earn you $15,840 — presumably because there's a collector out there that has everything apart from the housing and will do anything to finish it off.
