"Yes, this game is missing its labels, leaving the games identity indiscernible. However, everything else about the cartridge is perfect," says seller urb4nz0mb13. "You are bidding on THE CARTRIDGE WITH NO NAME."

The seller says he left a hint to the game's identity on the page, and we see that - displayed in white text - the clue is " The buy it now price is the year it was released." Well, since the bidding has gone up to $22.01, and I doubt Skynet sent this thing back in time, we no longer know what that is. However, late yesterday he felt compelled to file this update: "NOTE: This game is not shitty." Well, if you say so!

Update: Well, the interest in this item - which likely is Super Smash Bros. as many have pointed out - has driven up the bid price to $77. That's high enough that the seller is promising to send 20 percent of the final sale price to Child's Play, the charity that provides hospitalized children with video games and other toys. The auction ends in about six days.

Mysteriously Blank N64 Cartridge [eBay, thanks Thretris]

"The Only Elite Xbox 360 that has been microwaved," boasts the advertisement by artist Kenny Irwin. I'd love to see someone zap theirs just to spite the claim. Anyway, Irwin says half of the proceeds from this auction will go to the Council on American-Islamic Relations of California, which I bet never thought it'd be the beneficiary of a sale of melted consumer electronics.

Irwin's bio, according to the eBay listing:

Kenny Irwin art comes in many unique forms from using bic ball point pens to draw with to weaving xmas lights into textiles to microwaving everyday retail products into other worldly creatures and building giant robots out of your junk and much much more. Kenny Irwin art is endorsed and featured by AVAM [American Visionary Art Museum] and is the talk of the town and the talk of the world. Owning a Kenny Irwin original means owning something everyone talks about. From the internationally renowned dOvetastic Microwave Theater comes this state of the "art" work of art worthy of a place in the Guggenheim Museum sign and dated by Artist Kenny Irwin. Comes with free stylish display stand. Your item is guaranteed to have been microwaved or your money back. Remember, microwaving food is for morons. Price is non-negotiable. Buyer shall receive an object of microwave modern art.

CAIR of California is also listed as the 25 percent recipient of the proceeds from a nuked Wii, going for $5,988. It got the same treatment, microwaving, eyeball-affixing, the works. Speaking of works, these don't.

Microwaved Elite White Xbox 360 and Microwaved Nintendo Wii Mutant Gaming Machine [eBay via Hot Blooded Gaming]

"The Music Machine" was based on a line of other products, including albums - back when they were, in fact, albums. The seller indicated his elderly mother owned a Christian bookstore, and, while going through her things, came across the game. It puts a real twist on the cliché of your mom chucking out a rare baseball card or comic book you later find out is worth thousands. I

If the guy is taking care of his mom, and it sounds like it, then it sounds like the dough will be put to good use. Or he could be spending it all on hookers and cocaine, who am I to make judgments of people I've never met? C'mon, I'm trying to be a nice guy here.

Sealed Atari Game Sells for Over $5,000 [Hot Blooded Gaming]

But spend $20,100 on said ultra-rare NES game someone did, snapping up the "one of a kind" item on eBay. That purchase price may not be as outrageous as you're thinking.

It does have three games on it, Super Mario Bros. 3, Pin-Bot, and Dr. Mario, helping to defray the cost. I'm fairly certain that any copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 costs about ten large anyway, so it's a steal!

The real story is that this really may be the only cartridge of its kind, created for a nationwide college video game tournament from 1991. The Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 was allegedly supposed to be destroyed at the end of that promotion, but one employee managed to hold on to a copy.

Hit up eBay to marvel at this gorgeous little contraption of chips, PCB and plastic.

Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 NES World Championships [eBay - thanks, Billy!]

Seller David Morrill is hell-bent on getting his seven-figures for this Palin-autographed piece of hardware. After it was taken down in August, everyone said fake-fake-fakety-fake. Morrill, on the new listing, says it was taken down thanks to an "insufficient diescription of the item or no photos of the item," and then because "PayPal is unable to process a payment of this size." Which actually is good to know about PayPal.

So Morrill is back at it with a new payment processor. The console has been re-listed and is up for auction until Oct. 10, at a minimum bid of $1.1 million, which is upland territory usually handled by Christie's or Sotheby's.

As we said in August, this might be expecting a little much. $1.1 million would be a record for anything signed by a person still living at the time of its sale. Never mind this is the signature of a political one-hit wonder who just finished up a grueling four (4) months writing her memoir. Hell, I'm not even sure the advance on her memoir rises to the $1.1 million mark.

The 360 has a grand total of zero bids on it as of now. Surprise. Good luck with it, Dave.

Sarah Palin Signed Autograph XBOX 360 [eBay via Game Politics ]

Computer Space was developed and published in 1971 by Nutting Associates, not Atari, although programmers Bushnell and Ted Dabney did found Atari later. It's based on Spacewar!, developed at MIT in 1961, which is itself considered one of the first video games ever.

There's a green and a yellow version for sale. In addition to its cultural impact, the Computer Space cabinet is itself a funky piece of furniture, and a sure conversation starter for anyone visiting your rec room.

Rare Computer Space Arcade Machines Turn up on eBay [Technabob via Gizmodo]

Plainly and repeatedly listed as a "faulty Xbox 360" - and that picture isn't deceptive advertising - UK eBayer jonnyandco05's bricked 360 comes to you "modified for better ventilation, with a turbo inlet on the side." Also, "the disk drive has been repositioned for optimal performance at 37 degrees." No doubt by a massive blow to the case.

The seller says the console ringed and he tried to fix it, but his skills weren't up to it. "Sadly, it does have a bit of fire damage and rage damage." But just a bit.

Pros: Has "authentic Microsoft sticker."

Cons: "Some parts are a bit missing, like the on button." I'm sure that's what's preventing it from starting up.

Bidding started at 1 pence, At time of publication, it was up to £6.01. "Please note if you buy this it is sold as faulty, in quite a faulty way," he writes. "But faulty is the new fashion now days so you may become super trendy. no returns, no refunds, no job."

Faulty xbox 360, bargaiiiinnn quite possibly maybe? [ebay.co.uk, thanks James B.]

According to the listings, both are sealed and still have their posters inside. Here's one description.

This is one of the very limited Rapture Wine Bottles buried in the sand at 10 different beaches across the world, the last of which just ended in Santa Monica. This bottle contains 3 posters, one a Rapture propaganda poster, the front with a powerful image of a fist and the words "Welcome to Rapture". The back contains propaganda pertaining the ideology behind Rapture. The other two are humorous posters containing information about two of the exciting plasmids to be featured in the upcoming sequel.

If you were nowhere near one of the beaches, or couldn't make it, well, now's your chance to own an ... advertisement. Enjoy.

[thanks to Robert F. for the tip]

Update: Yup. This sucker's been de-listed. Couldn't've seen that one coming. Now, back to our original story ...

That picture above is one of two provided by the seller at the listing. He's claiming that it "was autographed at the governors picnic on July 24, 2009, in Wasilla, Alaska, just two days before her resignation as governor of that state." She did indeed have a picnic in that town on that date. But if she signed a console there, this is the first I have ever heard of it. And such things usually trickle onto the blogs.

We put the picture to a forensic examination by Kotaku's Bureau of Questioned Documents and could not make a conclusive determination either way, fake or 'shooped. Turning around and comparing it to her actual signature also produced no conclusion one way or the other.

But that $1.1 million price tag is fishy as Fairbanks. Not that any of you do have $1.1 million to drop on a tagged 360, but if you do, you probably know some appraiser who can certify this before eBayer dmorrill123 gets the money out of escrow. According to this list, $1.1 million would be a record for anything signed by a person still living when it was sold. Fellow-soliloquy writer Shakespeare's is valued at $5 million.

Just don't play it. Because if it red-rings and you send it in, well, don't expect Microsoft's power-washers to know the value of political memorabilia.

Sarah Palin Signed Autograph XBOX 360 [eBay]

That Michael Jackson signed PlayStation is now for sale, seemingly authentic in its scrawling upon by the late King of Pop. While the starting bid is not ludicrous, the Buy It Now price on eBay certainly is. The seller is willing to part with it right now for $1.5 million.

It's doubly special, according to the seller, being the 1,000,001st PlayStation to roll off the assembly line. Funny, that somehow sounds a little less believable than the Moonwalker actually scribbling "I Love You, Michael Jackson" on a game console.

Hand signed Michael Jackson Playstation with proof [eBay - thanks, Zeuxis!]

Sure, this is a big free ad - but Heza's not exactly fish food, and she's got a history on weekends. She's hand-made a Reaver plushie that is just dawwwww-adowable, and she's selling it on eBay for $30 OBO, plus $6 shipping.

So if you dig Starcraft, engines of devastation, fluorescent yellow Ceti eels, or just want to touch something that's touched Heza, run right out and bid it up.

StarCraft Reaver Plushie Toy - Custom Made [eBay]

The game in question is one we actually featured a few weeks back: a gold Nintendo World Championships cartridge, which had originally been listed on eBay for $25,000.

There were only ever 26 of these ever made, and despite the fact they're not actually gold - it's just gold paint - they're safely the most expensive, valuable video games on the open market.

Having failed to sell at that price, Hendricks got in a lowball offer, one which was eventually accepted by the seller. And on VGPC, has written about it. The ups, downs, the obstacles, the ecstasy. Every sentence makes the knot in the pit of your stomach grow ever tighter.

It's a fun read! Fun because he's the one that spent $17,500 on a game, and not us.

How I Got Nintendo World Championships Gold [VGPC, via Offworld]

This item's for sale on eBay. Thanks, Jon!

Prices are all over the place, with the highest buy it now price for a set currently listed at $1,500. The highest bid as of this afternoon for a set was at $910 with four days left to go.

There's obviously an issue with scalpers, but I don't really know how Blizzard can address it other than by really cutting down on the number of ticket you can buy at a time, or greatly expanding the size of the event.

eBay Listings

To be exact, the final amount was $1,025.01. For an unopened, store-bought copy of the 1995 classic, is that a steal? We'd say no, but then, as the headline says, Earthbound/Mother fans are crazy.

Crazy in a good way.

Unopened copy of Earthbound sells for over $1,000 on eBay [Go Nintendo]

Yessir, that's a custom pink Master Chief with Hello Kitty tattooed/embossed on his ass, kneepads, "HK47" rifle and shield. In other words, it looks like the kind of eye-gouging abomination that only an eight-year-old kid sister could create out of her big brother's action figure collection. And then some. You can Buy it Now! for $49.99 on eBay.

The action figure is deliberately gender ambiguous, according to the seller (who also advises: "Please be aware that with all paints there is always a chance of wear and tear (especially in the jointed areas of an action figure, so please remember to be careful!)"). Holy shit, I just went punctuation, close parenthesis, quote mark, close parenthesis and punctuation and it was correct.

Check out that Emma Frost Hellfire Club fireplace behind Chief. Unfortunately, you don't get it with your 50 bones.

Meowster Chief [Hawty McBloggy]

You might remember the Shigeru Miyamoto-scrawled GameBoy Advance that went for more than two grand back in 2007. With nine days left on the bidding, the seller's gunning for the same thing here.

There's nine days left on the bidding. The seller, Mikael, is in Sweden, he says the DS itself has never been used (and notes that Pure White was available for sale only in Japan.) For proof this isn't a fake, he only offers his badge from the 2005 E3.

Interesting, because McWhertor also got his Triforce-themed DS signed by Shiggy. The cartoony OTO signatures on both match up. So that either verifies Mikael's story, or it suggests that if Miyamoto signs everything stuck in front of him, maybe this is rare, but not like $2,000 rare.

Anyway, everyone go file your $6 bids now and snicker. Or, if you're more serious, offer maybe like a hundy or something. Who knows.

Nintendo DS Pure White Signed by Shigeru Miyamoto [eBay]

His latest is a second take on the Fallout 3 power armor, now on the Marvel Legends scale — if that means anything to you. That's six inches if it doesn't. Harvesting parts from the Iron Man Movie Titanium Man, a Super Patriot and Dirty Pair action figures, Jin certainly outdoes his previous effort.

Wanna learn how to get that shiny battle-damage look? Mr. Saotome explains! But if you don't feel like crafting your own, this one's for sale. Best of luck bidding — it ain't cheap.

Custom FALLOUT 3 Power Armor Marvel Legends Figure! [eBay]

Average used game prices started at a high of $12.69 on Jan. 1, dropped down to a low of $8.57 on Nov. 3 and rose back up to $9.68 by the end of 2008, according to the site. The free fall from January mirrored a similar drop in 2007, but ended up shaving an addition 11.8 percent off resales prices.

The article's author JJ Hendricks believes the drop in used game prices is because of the recession, but I'm not so sure that's a good explanation. Looking at the charts you can see that 2008 prices drop below 2007 prices in April, regaining strength for only a month or so before dropping below 07 again.

Perhaps it's because of the quality of used games being sold. There is certainly anecdotal evidence that gamers are holding onto more recent titles longer than they used to.

Average Game Prices During 2008 [Video Game Price Charts]