In October, a rather interesting item appeared on Goldin — an American online platform and auction house specializing in rare and very expensive collectibles.
An incredibly rare prototype of the Pokemon Red cartridge was put up for auction. This is a development cartridge created in 1998, containing 32 KB of ROM data from the original game.
According to PSA, the company that verified the authenticity of this item, during the examination, the hardware features of the equipment did not allow for complete data reading. Nevertheless, PSA managed to record the first 32 KB of data, which is technically a unique result.
There are two changes in the header data, but none in the game data itself. The difference is at offset 0x014C, which denotes the Mask ROM version and incorrectly has a value of 55 instead of 00. Because of this, offset 0x014D, which is the calculated header checksum, changed: instead of 20, it is CB.
According to PSA notes, the existing game data is completely identical to the final American release of the game, and the company is confident that the remaining data, if it could be read, would match it.
If you look closely, you can see a sticker on the front of the cartridge with the inscription “DMB-MBC-16M-FLASH”. The cartridge itself is longer than a standard Game Boy cartridge and has the serial number DMG-(F)KGDB-01 — this is an undocumented development board.
Currently, there is one bid of $25,000 (2,026,214 rubles) on the lot, and the auction will close on October 26, 2026, at 04:00 Moscow time. It will be interesting to see how much it goes for, as it is still unclear how early this cartridge was manufactured.
And because it does not have a working version of the game, will collectors classify it as an early version of the game or as a first print? Most likely not, but nevertheless, there are people who adore prototypes, as they were never supposed to fall into the hands of the public.