A new model of Nike Air Max sneakers have been released and has been inspired by some pretty unique source material that all of us who were around during the Nintendo 64’s early days. Of all things to base a sneaker design on, no-one could possibly have foresaw that arguably the most popular sneaker brand in the world would get inspiration from a video game cheat mode. But not just any cheat mode, it’s a cheat mode that everyone who played Goldeneye 007 on Nintendo 64 back in the day remembers. It was the most memorable of all the cheat modes you could obtain when playing Goldeneye 007 the big head mode or “DK Mode”. In case you somehow can’t remember or don’t know because you’ve never played that game (you’re forgiven) it’s the comically oversized big head cheat that would make every NPC in the game as well as the player’s character have massively big head.
The sneakers in question are the “Nike Air Max 1 Low Poly”. The same sneakers have also taken inspiration from two other game franchises: Donkey Kong and Tomb Raider however the design elements are more ambiguous than the Goldeneye 007 inspired color scheme. The shoes primary colors are black, white, grey and gold while, in my opinion, the most obvious video game inspired color elements can be seen when you look at the tongue and above the back of the heel. The tongue, shoe laces and Nike “Swoosh Logo” are a brilliant gold reminiscent of the golden gun. On the back of the sneakers, just above the heel, you can see the instantly recognizable health bar from the game. The inside of the shoes have a metal tread print with a crosshair and inside the tongue you can see a graphic mimicking the American ESRB rating’s label.
Pretty sweet kicks aren’t they? If you want to get yourself a pair, and I know I do, you will need to pre-order on Snkrs app, and you will also need .Swoosh membership in order to purchase them. The retail price is $160 USD and they have just gone on sale yesterday, 7th of April 2025.
Update for Australians who want to buy these sneakers…
Since Nike only allows purchase of the “Air Max 1 Low Poly” via the SNKRS phone app and the app isn’t available in Australia the sneakers are essentially not officially available in Australia. You can probably see where this is heading. Due to this, and all the media hype around these sneakers, demand has skyrocketed especially in regions where Nike is not selling them, like Australia. In order to get your hands on these you need to get them from a third or fourth party distributor like eBay, Goat or StockX. Unfortunately these companies sell sneakers based on demand, so whatever people are willing to pay for them, which of course is the most for the “007 Big Head Mode” version.
The Donkey Kong and Tomb Raider versions sell for a bit less, but it’s still quite a lot of money just for a nice pair of sneakers. As of the 9th of April these shoe’s are selling for around $750 AUD which is a fair bit more than the retail price in the USA of $160 USD or around $270 AUD with the current exchange rate. I think people are going a little bit crazy for these shoes, while they are very attractive and inspired by one of the most iconic Nintendo 64 games ever released, to me it doesn’t justify paying $0.75K for. The absolute most I can justify paying for nice sneakers like this is no more than $400 AUD. So I believe I will wait until the hype dies down and hopefully the price with it and if it doesn’t get any lower than I will give these shoes a miss. After all if you plan on wearing them they will only depreciate in value until they are completely worn out and eventually worthless after a several years. For $750 you could get a very, very nice or rare retro video game for your collection that will appreciate in value instead.
Instead of spending $750 on sneakers you could get a complete (or near complete) copy of Chrono Trigger for SNES, a loose copy of Earthbound for SNES, a complete copy of Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64 or a complete Dragon Warrior for the NES. If you are a retro video game collector there are many better ways to spend your hard earned money, if you are a sneaker collector well that would be a different story. I know I would much rather get a grail level game for my collection then a pair of kicks for that much money.