CGC Video Games Grades Two Nintendo Competition Cartridges

In May, CGC Video Games™ announced that it had graded two Nintendo World Championships cartridges — rare and coveted items within the video game collecting community. Recently, CGC Video Games graded two more video game cartridges used for Nintendo competitions — a Donkey Kong Country: Competition Cartridge and a Star Fox: Super Weekend event cartridge. Both are available in the upcoming Video Games Signature Auction hosted by Heritage Auctions, which is set to end on July 28, 2023.

In the early 1990s, Nintendo often hosted official video game competitions during events and gaming showcases. Typically, players would compete using a special game cartridge that Nintendo modified specifically for the tournament. Modifications typically included cutting the game’s content down to one or two levels, adding a timer for speed-based events or disabling known cheats and exploits.

One such cartridge is this Donkey Kong Country: Competition Cartridge for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System graded CGC 8.5 (lot 28074). It was used during the 1994 Nintendo PowerFest tournament, and again during the Blockbuster World Video Game Championships II event later the same year. 

The cartridge features a large graphic that says “Competition Cartridge” on the front artwork, and “Resale/Rental of the Game Pak is Prohibited!” on the spine. Meanwhile, the game itself was modified to only include select levels from the main game. The programmers also included a timer and a point counter for use in the competition.

After the competitions ended, all 2,500 copies of Donkey Kong Country: Competition Cartridge were rounded up and sold through the Nintendo Power catalog to their subscribers. Because of its rarity and exclusivity, it is highly prized within the video game collecting community.

Nintendo also organized widespread video game competitions by giving these special cartridges to home video and video game stores across the country for use in small tournaments that culminated into nationwide placements. One of these competitions included the Star Fox: Super Weekend game.

Like Donkey Kong Country, players competed in Star Fox: Super Weekend to have the highest score in a limited amount of time. The cartridge was modified so that players could only progress through the first Corneria and Asteroid stages, and only had a five-minute time limit to play. Winners of the competition were awarded different prizes based on their score.

Also similar to the Donkey Kong Country: Competition Cartridge, Star Fox Super Weekend cartridges were gathered up after the competition ended to be sold to subscribers of Nintendo Power. A limited amount of these cartridges are known to exist, and they are extremely rare. This Star Fox: Super Weekend cartridge for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1993) is graded CGC 7.0 (lot 28224).

These cartridges are undoubtedly special within the gaming community, and they’re expected to garner fierce competition at auction.

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for many other types of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for TCGs, sports cards and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. The newest division of CGC, CGC Home Video, provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of videocassettes.