Nintendo World Championships

An elusive Nintendo World Championships NES cartridge

Nintendo World Championships was a special nationwide promotion/contest in 1990 that occurred in twenty-two cities around the United States. The legacy of this promotion lies in the game cartridge of the same name which was used in the competition. There are 116 copies of this game known to exist; 90 standard editions, given to contest winners, and 26 gold cartridges given to winners of a related Nintendo Power promotion. Because of this, it is a particularly rare game and is valued by video game collectors. Nintendo features the reminiscent Nintendo World Championships Remix in 2014's NES Remix 2 for the Wii U.

NES Game

Main article: Nintendo World Championships 1990

The NES cartridge serves as the primary competition in the 1990 Nintendo World Championship. The cartridge has a combination of Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris. The timer is set for 6 minutes and 21 seconds. Each game is modified for the contest:

• Tetris plays in a marathon mode until the timer runs out unless you fill up the Tetris board and then the game ends. The player starts out in Super Mario Bros. They are given 99 lives, and are required to collect 50 coins in the shortest time possible. After completing this, the game moves on to Rad Racer where the player has to complete the first track, again in the shortest time possible. Finally, they move on to Tetris and have to get the highest score possible with the remaining time they have left.

After the player plays a round of each game, their scores are totaled. Each score is adjusted. The players score in Super Mario Bros. x1, their score in Rad Racer is x10, and the score in Tetris is x25! This encourages the players to reach Tetris as quickly as possible as it is the best way to achieve high scores, but some gamers would go to World 3-1 and do to Koopa 1UP Trick

Legacy

The Nintendo World Championship cartridges are considered the "Holy Grail" of NES Collecting by many fans. Gold cartridges are the most sought-after NES cartridges in the history of video gaming, and may go for over $10,000.

Reproduction Cartridge by Retrozone

In 2008, the website retrousb.com (Retrozone) began selling Reproduction Cartridges of the Holy Grail Nintendo World Championships cart. The reproduced cartridge is nearly identical to the original, complete with its own DIP switches. The differences are that the cartridge is Blueish Purplely Color. This can be played on any NES. It plays slow on your PAL NES system., so they give you more time on it. The game comes with a nice printed manual, and a dust sleeve with the game in it.

Related

• Nintendo Campus Challenge
• Nintendo Powerfest '94

Gallery

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  Standard grey cartridge

• NWC-Booklet Art.jpg

  Front cover of game booklet

• 1194794648-00.png

  Game title screen

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  Super Mario Bros. title screen

• NWC 1990-Rad Racer.png

  Rad Racer title screen

• NWC 1990-Tetris.png

  Tetris title screen

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  Flyer promoting the event

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  Promotional T-shirt

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  Promotional T-shirt

External Links

• The Warp Zone article
• AtariHQ Article with info on the cartridge

Click Here To Buy NWC 1990 For 50 Bucks