Expensive eBay tag for lost video game

A long-lost piece of video game history has re-appeared and is now for sale – if you can handle the $50,000 price tag.

An unreleased, apparently authentic copy of Final Fantasy II for the NES is up for auction on Ebay claiming to be the “only REAL copy in the world of this lost game."

The sequel to the unexpectedly successful Final Fantasy, FFII for the NES never received a release outside Japan due to the long translation time and the upcoming release of the SNES.

However, the game did get translated, as several versions of the game have since been released for various, more advanced consoles; so it is possible this copy of the game is legitimate.

According to the auctioneer, “this particular cartridge was put together by the fine folks at Square Soft USA (a very small company at the time) to display at the 1991 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The plan was to release the game later that year, but instead, Square scrapped its 8-bit NES plans to focus on the new 16-bit Super Nintendo.”

Text on the cartridge declares the game a “sample”, but the auctioneer claims that the whole game is present and playable.

I have to admit it is kind of cool to see pieces of vintage gaming memorabilia emerging 20 years after their release, but I still won’t be shelling out $50 grand for it. Maybe that’s just me.

So if you’ve got a 20-year-old game console, a small fortune and nothing else to spend it on, check out the auction here

Good luck.

What do you think? Is $50,000 too much for a game? Tell us your thoughts below.