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NES box art for Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet, the cover of NEStalgia episode 416

416 · Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet

▶ Game info
February 13, 2026 · 31 min · transcript available

Our verdict: Skip it

This is a cartridge episode, our third trip through Super Mario Bros. Mike, Sean and Joe were on it. The last time was with Duck Hunt alone, and this time World Class Track Meet is added. We spent little time on how the games play and most of it on the box they came in.

The cartridge

  • Mario and Duck Hunt, we already have an opinion on. We opened by asking if anyone wanted to controversially pull Super Mario Bros. off the Essential Games List, and nobody did. Duck Hunt is still the NES game we boot up most in real life, because it is so easy to fire up on a CRT.
  • Track Meet is the weak link. We never liked it or its clones, and we barely remembered it. It is also the third time we have discussed it, since it began as Stadium Events, which now sells for around $25,000 complete in box before it was pulled and renamed.
  • The bundle is the point. This was the pack-in for the Power Set: NES, two controllers, a Zapper and a Power Pad, retailing at $179, about $455 in 2026. Our guess is Nintendo had Power Pads to clear out. The earlier Action Set had no Power Pad.

How the bundles compare

  • Prices. The original NES was $199, the Action Set $149 in 1989, then $179 and $199 for the Power and Sports Sets. Only $50 came off over four years.
  • The Sports Set has the two-game cart we cover next week, four controllers, the wireless NES Satellite and six C batteries.
  • The Rob set was $299 with Rob, Gyromite, Duck Hunt and a Zapper. At a retro gaming expo we got Rob to respond just enough to clear one level.
  • Better pack-ins. We would take Super Mario Bros. 1 through 3 or Tetris, and said nearly any game beats one built around a Power Pad. Our guess on why not: cartridges cost more than discs.

Beyond the game

We drifted through bundles we bought, Wii Sports, limited edition consoles, an NES built into a Sharp TV, and a Tetris Worlds and Clone Wars Xbox pack nobody could explain.

The bottom line

Skip it. If you play the NES, you already have the two games that matter here, and the third is the one we shrugged at. On the Essential Games List there was no vote. We read out a fast-talking "not applicable for the Essential Games List" disclaimer instead. If you want the best bundle value, we would take the plain Mario and Duck Hunt cart and skip the Power Pad.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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