Super Metroid (Super Nintendo) — Live Deals & Price Guide

Super Metroid shipped in April 1994 as the third entry in Nintendo's Metroid series and quickly became one of the defining games of the 16-bit era — both as the SNES era's most-celebrated atmospheric action-adventure title and as the foundational text for the entire "Metroidvania" genre that emerged later. Developed by Nintendo R&D1 / Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo, it expanded on the original Metroid's NES exploration loop with a non-linear interconnected map, a deep upgrade-and-revisit progression, the iconic morph-ball / grapple-beam / wall-jump movement vocabulary, and a moody Brinstar-to-Tourian environmental storytelling style that has shaped action-adventure design for thirty years. The cartridge market reflects that staying power — Super Metroid has been one of the most actively-traded SNES titles since the late-2000s retro resurgence, with deep loose-cart supply, a meaningful CIB market, and a small but real sealed-graded tier. The feed below pulls current eBay listings that match the original 1994 US-NTSC SNES release, filtered to authentic-claim sellers with a meaningful feedback history. Pick a condition chip — All, Loose, CIB, or Sealed — to scope what's shown; the editorial below explains what each tier should actually include and what to verify before buying.

What the feed shows you (and what it doesn't)

The deals on this page surface the original 1994 US-NTSC Super Nintendo release as a standalone cartridge — the cart, the box, or graded copies of either. They deliberately filter out:

• Japanese Super Famicom imports. The Japanese release shipped on the Super Famicom in March 1994 under the same Super Metroid title, but the Super Famicom cart is a different physical shape, uses a different product-code prefix (SHVC- rather than the US SNS-), and the box artwork is in Japanese. The Japanese cart trades meaningfully below US copies and is a recurring search-confusion vector on this title. Excluded by super famicom, sfc, japan, ntsc-j, jpn, japanese, and import.
• PAL European, Australian, and UK releases. Different region SKUs that won't natively boot on a US NTSC SNES without a region adapter or a region-modded console. Excluded by pal.
• Other Metroid titles cross-listed under "Super Metroid". Metroid: Zero Mission (2004, Game Boy Advance — a remake of the original NES Metroid), Metroid Fusion (2002, GBA), Metroid Prime (2002, GameCube), Metroid: Samus Returns (2017, 3DS — a remake of Metroid II), Metroid: Other M (2010, Wii), and Metroid Dread (2021, Switch). All are real Metroid games but none are the 1994 SNES Super Metroid cart. Excluded by name when sellers cross-list them.
• Super Metroid ROM-hack carts. Super Metroid has one of the deepest SNES ROM-hacking scenes — Super Metroid Redesign, Phazon, Polarity, Ancient Chozo, Ascent, and many others ship as homebrew flash carts in a real SNES shell, with custom or stock-looking labels, and sellers occasionally list them under "Super Metroid" with the hack name appended. Excluded by name; new hack names appear continuously so verify any unusual-titled Super Metroid listing isn't a hack-cart before buying.
• Multi-game lots, Player's Guides / strategy guides, manuals-only, boxes-only, broken/parts-only carts, controllers, plush, figures, posters, jigsaw puzzles, 3D-printed novelty cartridge replicas, wall-art display cases, "For Display Only" Not-For-Resale promo boxes, soundtracks, and the rest of the surrounding Metroid merch. The feed is the cartridge market, not the Metroid-merchandise market. The Nintendo Power Player's Strategy Guide for Super Metroid is a separately collectible book that trades in the same loose-cart asking range and was actively polluting the listings before exclusion.

Asking prices in the live feed reflect what sellers are asking in this snapshot. Actual sold values can run lower (especially after offer negotiation on CIB tier).

Variants and reprints to know

Super Metroid had a long US print life and shipped in more than one packaging variant. The most common are:

• Original 1994 print. The launch-window print run — distinguished by box artwork that does not carry a Player's Choice banner. First-print boxes in clean condition ask a premium over later prints among completionist collectors.
• Player's Choice budget reprint. Nintendo added a Player's Choice banner to the box artwork on titles that crossed a sales threshold; Super Metroid qualified and shipped in this packaging during the mid-late SNES era. The Player's Choice banner runs across the top of the box and is unmistakable when the box top is shown clearly in a listing photo — if a listing only shows the box front-on and crops the top, ask the seller for a top-of-box photo before paying first-print prices. Player's Choice boxes typically ask below first-print boxes for the same condition tier.

The cartridge label artwork on the original-release and Player's Choice prints is essentially identical at the cart level — the variant lives in the box artwork, not on the cart. A loose-cart listing therefore can't be variant-identified on cart photos alone; you're buying "a Super Metroid cart" regardless of what print the box originally came from.

Loose vs CIB vs Sealed for this title

Loose is the deepest bucket. Super Metroid had a large US print run and Nintendo kept manufacturing it for years through the Player's Choice reprint program, so bare cartridges trade at an accessible tier for one of the most-loved SNES first-party titles. Loose asking spread is driven by cosmetic label condition (the cart label artwork fades and wears in characteristic ways over 30+ years), authenticity claims, and save behavior on real hardware. Even a label-worn loose copy still plays the same game.

CIB ("Complete In Box") for the original 1994 SNES release should mean: the original cardboard outer box, the cardboard inner tray that cradles the cartridge, the instruction manual, and the standard Nintendo paperwork inserts of the era (specific contents varied across print runs). The cardboard inner tray is commonly missing or replaced with a reseller-fabricated tray — listings that describe themselves as "complete" without confirming the tray are CIB-minus. The cardboard outer box is fragile and frequently damaged: corner crush, label fade, tape residue from store-shelf price labels, and sun-bleaching on the spine all drive spread within the CIB tier. Some Super Metroid CIBs from specific print runs shipped with additional Nintendo promotional cards or registration inserts; the editorial here doesn't try to enumerate the specific insert set, since the Nintendo paperwork mix varied across the title's multi-year production window.

Sealed for Super Metroid SNES is almost exclusively graded by WATA / VGA / CGC / PSA at this point. Raw factory-sealed copies essentially do not exist outside graded slabs — given the title's age, asking-price tier, and the well-documented re-seal counterfeit market, any raw "sealed" Super Metroid copy at a market-rate asking price deserves heavy skepticism. The Sealed bucket on this page reflects graded slabs across the moderate-to-investment grade range; top-grade investment-tier copies (WATA 9.4+ / CGC 9.6+ first-print) trade well above broad market norms and belong in the auction-house market more than the deal-page market. Top-grade graded Super Metroid sealed copies regularly cross five-figure asking prices.

Spotting Japanese Super Famicom imports re-listed as US

This is the single most common confusion vector on Super Metroid specifically — the Japanese Super Famicom release uses the exact same English title (Super Metroid) on the box, predates the US release by about a month, and continues to trade meaningfully below US copies. Sellers cross-list SFC carts under SNES category listings constantly.

The reliable tells:

• Cartridge shape. US Super Nintendo carts have a tall rectangular shell with curved ridges along the top and a paper label in the standard SNES label format. Japanese Super Famicom carts are physically smaller, more square, and use a different label layout. A photo showing the bare cart silhouette resolves the Japanese-vs-US split in two seconds.
• Product-code prefix on the back-of-cart label. Authentic US Super Nintendo carts carry the prefix SNS- (Super Nintendo System) on the back-label product code. Japanese Super Famicom carts use SHVC- (Super Hi-Vision Cassette) — the Super Metroid SFC code commonly appears as SHVC-RI. A clear back-label photo is the definitive structured signal.
• Box-art language. The Japanese box uses Japanese script alongside the English Super Metroid logo. The US box uses English-only marketing copy.
• Region in the listing title. Sellers honestly identifying region use NTSC-U/C (US / Canada), USA, US, or North America; Japanese sellers use NTSC-J, JPN, Japan, Japanese, SFC, Super Famicom, or the bare product-code prefix SHVC. The feed excludes these keywords and the SFC region-trigger vocabulary, but verify the cart photo and back-label code before bidding when a listing looks suspiciously underpriced.

A Japanese cart isn't a fake or a bad product — it's a different SKU on incompatible hardware. If you specifically want the Japanese release, shop for it explicitly with a Super Famicom adapter or a region-modded SNES.

Spotting reproductions, ROM hacks, and reshells

Super Metroid has a deep counterfeit and ROM-hack market because (a) the cart is iconic enough that demand is unconditional, (b) the ROM is well-documented and trivial to flash to aftermarket SNES-form-factor hardware, (c) it's one of the most actively-modded SNES titles in the world (the ROM-hacking community has produced full reimaginings of the game), and (d) the loose-cart asking tier is high enough on clean-label copies to make a bootleg economically attractive. Most carts on the market are authentic; the dishonest fraction is meaningful and worth checking against.

• Reproduction carts with counterfeit labels. The most common attack: a flash cart in a generic SNES shell with a counterfeit Super Metroid label glued on, listed at slightly-below-market price. The feed excludes self-disclosed repro, reproduction, aftermarket, and whole-word repo listings, but a dishonest seller listing a bootleg as authentic at a low feedback floor still slips through. Verification work falls on you. Watch for: label printing that's too crisp / too matte / too glossy compared to a 30-year-old factory label, label artwork that doesn't match an authentic reference photo, a back-of-cart screw that isn't the original Nintendo security screw (a Phillips head on the back means the cart has been opened — could be a legitimate save-battery swap, could be a reshell, could be a bootleg), and asking prices unusually below the loose-cart market median. Verify against a high-resolution photo of a known-authentic Super Metroid cart.
• Super Metroid ROM-hack carts. Super Metroid is one of the most-hacked games in SNES history — Super Metroid Redesign (a sprawling community total-conversion), Super Metroid Phazon, Super Metroid Polarity, Super Metroid Ancient Chozo, Super Metroid Ascent, and dozens of randomizer-shuffled romhacks circulate as homebrew flash carts in SNES form factor with custom or stock-looking labels. Some are sold as community releases by services like Game Force Online; others appear on eBay as one-off seller flips. Sellers honestly identify the hack name in the listing title — Redesign, Phazon, Polarity, Ancient Chozo, Ascent, etc. The feed excludes them by name but new hack names appear continuously; if a listing title says any qualifier other than "Super Metroid" alongside the cart (an alternate subtitle, a community project name, a randomizer-seed designation), assume it's a hack-cart until proven otherwise.
• "For Display Only" / NFR ("Not For Resale") promo boxes. Nintendo distributed promotional display-only boxes of Super Metroid to retailers in 1994 — empty boxes intended for store shelf display, not for sale. These boxes occasionally surface as collector items and the WATA-graded versions trade in the upper-hundreds-of-dollars range. They are NOT a real CIB and do not contain a cart. The feed excludes display only, nfr (whole-word), and display case listings; verify any unusually cheap CIB-looking listing isn't actually an NFR promo box.
• Reshells / aftermarket housings. Some listings disclose that the original PCB has been transplanted into a non-Nintendo housing — clear plastic shells, alternate-color shells, aluminum housings. The board may be authentic but the cart is no longer in original-collector state.
• Photo evidence to ask for. A trustworthy seller at the loose-cart asking tier can show: front of cart label, back of cart label (with the SNS- product-code prefix clearly visible), back of cart with the security screw visible, and a photo of the cart booting to the Super Metroid title screen on real SNES hardware. Three minutes of seller-photo work resolves most authenticity concerns short of opening the cart.

Save behavior and the cart battery

Super Metroid saves to battery-backed SRAM on the cartridge — the standard SNES save architecture for first-party action-adventure and exploration titles of the era. The cart contains a coin-cell battery that powers a save-data RAM chip; when that battery dies, save files are lost on the next power cycle. The cart itself plays fine without a battery — the SRAM only matters for save persistence, not gameplay — but Super Metroid's progression structure (the long Brinstar-to-Tourian arc, the upgrade-collection design, the famous ending-time-and-completion-percentage screen) is the kind of long-arc exploration game most buyers actually want to save through.

Practical buyer-decision implications:

• "New save battery" / "battery replaced" listings give you a real signal. A seller who explicitly swapped the battery is telling you the cart will hold saves for another decade or more. Listings that only say "tested working" without specifying that saves were tested across multiple power cycles give you less.
• "Dry battery" / "battery dead — won't save" listings still play through the entire game. The cart works for active play; you just can't power-off and resume. These are legitimate listings priced below tested-saves examples; if you intend to swap the battery yourself, this can be the better deal.
• Battery-replacement date matters. "Battery replaced" with a date ("replaced 2024") is a different signal than "battery replaced" with no date. The replacement clock starts when the cell was swapped, not when the cart was made.
• DIY swap cell type. The exact coin-cell spec varies across SNES PCB revisions and isn't worth guessing remotely — if you plan the swap yourself, open the cart with the appropriate Nintendo security driver and verify the cell type against the visible markings on the original cell before ordering replacements.

Per-condition verification checklist

Loose

• Confirm the cartridge shape matches a standard US Super Nintendo cart (tall rectangular shell with curved top ridges). Smaller / squarer shapes are Japanese Super Famicom carts.
• Look at the back-of-cart label for the product code. An authentic US cart's code begins with SNS-. A code starting with SHVC- is the Japanese cart; SNSP- is the PAL European cart.
• Confirm the back-of-cart screw is the original Nintendo security screw (not a standard Phillips head). Phillips on the back means the cart has been opened — could be a legitimate save-battery swap, could be a reshell, could be a bootleg — verify against the seller's other photos.
• Look at the label artwork: tears, water damage, residue from price stickers, faded background color, label paper that looks too new for a 30-year-old cart. Compare against a high-resolution photo of a known-authentic Super Metroid label.
• Ask whether saves have been tested across multiple power cycles and what specifically the seller verified. "Tested working" can mean a 30-second power-on check; "saves tested, powered off, came back, save loaded" is the actionable signal.
• Verify the cart title isn't an appended ROM-hack designation. A loose cart titled Super Metroid is the original; Super Metroid Redesign, Super Metroid Phazon, Super Metroid Ancient Chozo, Super Metroid Ascent, Super Metroid Polarity, and any other subtitle-bearing variant is a homebrew hack-cart.
• Treat a Super Metroid loose asking sharply below the broader market median as the strongest single repro-or-misrepresentation signal short of the seller saying so. The title prints in high volume but doesn't trade at giveaway prices.

CIB

• Confirm the box is the original cardboard outer box (not a "replacement box" — the aftermarket reproduction-box market exists specifically for CIB-assemblers). The feed filters replacement box only listings out, but verify against the listing photos that the box shown is the original.
• Confirm the box is NOT a Nintendo "For Display Only" / NFR promo box. NFR boxes typically carry "NOT FOR RESALE" or "FOR DISPLAY ONLY" printed text on the box itself; the feed excludes them, but verify in the listing photos before paying CIB-tier asking.
• Confirm the cardboard inner tray is present and matches an authentic Nintendo tray. The tray is fragile and frequently missing from "CIB" listings; ask if it's not visible in the photos.
• Confirm the instruction manual is present and not a photocopy or modern reprint.
• Identify the variant from the box artwork: original 1994 print (no Player's Choice banner) vs Player's Choice reprint (banner across the top of the box). The variant drives the asking-price tier. Ask for a top-of-box photo if it's cropped in the listing photos.
• Box wear (corner crush, label fade, tape residue, sun-bleaching on the spine, indented original-retailer price stickers) drives the spread in CIB asking prices. Listings that show the box only from one angle in a flattering pose may be hiding damage on the other faces — ask for photos of all six sides if you're paying the upper end of the tier.

Sealed (graded)

• Almost always in a WATA / VGA / CGC / PSA grading slab — verify the grading slab is from a reputable house, the grade is readable in the listing photos, and the certification number is visible.
• Cross-check the cert number against the grading house's online lookup if you're paying meaningfully into the tier.
• Counterfeit-PCB carts have been reshelled and re-sealed into convincingly-presented boxes for the sealed-grading market. Sealed copies that haven't been through a reputable grading service deserve extra scrutiny — a raw sealed Super Metroid at a market-rate asking price is highly unusual and should be approached with skepticism, not enthusiasm.
• Identify whether the graded slab is the original 1994 print or the Player's Choice reprint. Top-grade first-print sealed slabs trade at a meaningful premium over equivalently-graded Player's Choice slabs; the box-top banner is visible through the slab and is the discriminator.

Buying gotchas specific to this title

• Japanese Super Famicom cross-listings. The single most common confusion on Super Metroid. The SFC release shares the exact English title text and the seller may not call out the region clearly in the listing title. The cartridge shape and SHVC- product-code prefix are the structured tells; verify both before bidding when a listing looks suspiciously underpriced.
• Super Metroid ROM-hack carts at "authentic" prices. Redesign, Phazon, Polarity, Ancient Chozo, Ascent, randomizer-seed carts, and many others are legitimate fan projects but they are NOT authentic Nintendo product. They ship on aftermarket flash carts with custom or stock-looking labels. The feed excludes them by name; verify any unusual-titled Super Metroid listing isn't a hack-cart before buying. A sealed "Super Metroid Redesign" big-box from a small homebrew publisher in 2010s era is a completely different product from a graded 1994 SNES Super Metroid sealed copy, even if both photos look superficially similar.
• "For Display Only" / NFR promo boxes mistaken for CIB. Nintendo's retailer-display promo boxes of Super Metroid surface on eBay regularly, sometimes graded by WATA, and look indistinguishable from the consumer box at a glance. They contain no cart. The feed excludes them by display only and nfr, but the visual presentation is similar enough that a buyer skimming thumbnails can mistake one for a real CIB or sealed copy.
• Reproduction carts at "authentic" prices. Asking prices sharply below the market median are a strong repro signal. Don't pay loose-cart asking for a cart you can't authenticate from the listing photos alone.
• CIB tray missing. The cardboard inner tray is one of the most-frequently-missing CIB components. "Complete in box" by itself doesn't guarantee the tray; verify it's in the listing photos before paying full-CIB asking.
• Original print vs Player's Choice mis-pricing. Some sellers list a Player's Choice CIB at first-print asking; some list a first-print CIB at Player's Choice asking. The discriminator lives in the box-top banner. A top-of-box photo settles it in seconds.
• Player's Strategy Guide listings priced like loose carts. Nintendo Power's Super Metroid Official Player's Strategy Guide (the foldout-map-bearing print collectible) trades in the $75-$150 range — the same range as a clean loose cart — and sellers occasionally list it with title text that emphasizes "Super Metroid SNES" before mentioning "Player's Guide". The feed excludes Player's Guides specifically; outside this surface, look for the word "Guide", "Book", or "Strategy" in the listing title before assuming you're buying the cart.
• Multi-game SNES first-party lots. Super Metroid frequently shows up bundled with Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, or Donkey Kong Country in multi-game lots. Lot listings get filtered out so per-game asking prices stay accurate; the feed excludes lot, bundle, collection, set of, and the digit phrases (3 games, 4 games, 5 games).
• 3D-printed novelty cart replicas. Etsy-style oversized 3D-printed SNES cartridge replicas with Super Metroid label artwork have flooded the broader market over the past few years, and they cross-post to eBay regularly. The feed excludes oversized, 3d printed, wall art, wall mount, decor, display case, and not a game; outside this surface, watch for unusually low-priced "Super Metroid SNES" listings that turn out to be wall decor when you open the photos.
• Seller feedback floor. The deal feed requires the seller to have ≥50 feedback at ≥99% positive. Low-feedback sellers with cheap Super Metroid listings are a recurring fraud vector on a title with an active counterfeit and ROM-hack market — the feed quietly drops them, but the same heuristic protects you if you're shopping outside this surface.