Update: Goldin Auctions founder Ken Goldin has personally responded to Yuji Naka, assuring the developer that this was a “genuine sale to a real buyer.”On Twitter, Goldin wrote an threaded response to Naka, assuring the creator that the record-high price was due in part to the video game market “heating up”. He adds that this was different from the millions of mass-produced copies of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that instead it is, “a very early copy, sealed in mint condition from 1991 that is from the original release and is rare in sealed mint condition.”Goldin says that comparing this copy of the game to others is “like comparing a hardcover book of Steinbach or even Harry Potter that you can buy on Amazon to a rare 1st edition copy that can sell for 10s or 100s of thousands of $.” He adds: “There are no accounting for tastes, and what wealthy individuals collect.”Naka has not responded at time of writing.1/ Naka San — we can assure you that this is a genuine sale to a real buyer on Goldin. Our customers trust us because all of our auctions are fair and for authentic items. We also vet all of our bidders on high end items such as this— Ken Goldin (@KenGoldin) September 21, 2021 Have you played Sonic the Hedgehog [1991]?YESNOSonic co-creator Yuji Naka was shocked to see that a copy of 1991’s Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Genesis had amassed a jaw-dropping $430,500 at auction. So shocked, in fact, that after seeing the price that his iconic retro game had sold for, Naka took to Twitter to ask his followers whether the winning bid was a scam. On September 19, Goldin Auctions announced that a final sale price for a Wata A-graded copy of Sonic the Hedgehog was an all-time record for any Genesis game. After seeing the announcement, Naka tweeted, seemingly holding out some hope that his game could reach such huge prices: “I wondered if it was time for Sonic to reach a high.” However, the creator seemed unconvinced, asking his followers whether they thought the half a million price tag on his 1991 classic was “a scam”.Is it a scam?— Yuji Naka / 中 裕司 (@nakayuji) September 21, 2021 Naka’s hopes surrounding the game’s auction price were seemingly pinned on the back of the news that a factory sealed copy of 1985’s Super Mario Bros. sold at auction for a world-record sum of $2 million last month. “I saw the news that Mario was sold at a high price recently, so I thought Sonic was also a high price, but it’s different. I’m sorry,” Naka concluded in a thread of tweets. It’s not clear what led Naka to believe this was a different situation to the Mario sale.Naka’s replies are full of skepticism surrounding the valuation of the cart, which started at a minimum bid price of $75,000 and received a total of 21 bids to take it up to its final auction price. Much of that skepticism seemingly surrounds the involvement of Wata Games in the sealed game’s grading.As prices in the retro games market have exploded over the last few years, Wata Games has faced controversy after journalist Karl Jobst released a YouTube video suggesting that the company had engaged in unethical practices to drive up the price of retro games at auction – although that allegation primarily involves a different auction company to Goldin. While Wata Games has denied the accusations (thanks VGC), a number of fans in the retro games community have seemingly remained suspicious about the company. In other related news, Yuji Naka recently announced that he has taken a move toward the realm of indie games following his exit from Square Enix earlier this year. The Sonic co-creator informed fans that he’d recently begun working on a solo Unity project that is being created for smartphones. Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
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