BODY: In December 2023, a Japanese variety show manufactured ten Famicom-compatible cartridges of an original detective game, scattered them across game stores and secondhand shops around the country, and then asked its panel to guess how many players would ever finish it. The answer, as of broadcast night, was zero. That game is now about to disappear from the Nintendo eShop.
Publisher Phoenixx announced on October 14 that the Switch download version of Quiz: Seikai wa Ichinen Go presents Atsushi no Meitantei will end sales on December 30. Players who already own it can keep playing indefinitely. Until October 31 at 11:59 p.m. JST, it's 50% off at ¥500 — effectively a closing-down sale.
The game comes from TBS's Quiz: Seikai wa Ichinen Go ("The Correct Answer Is One Year From Now"), a year-end special that debuted in 2013 and builds entire segments around predictions that only resolve twelve months later. Developed by Happy Meal, the command-selection adventure casts the show's MC, comedian Tamura Atsushi, as a detective investigating the fate of castmate Razor Ramon RG. It's a straight-faced parody of Namco's 1987 Famicom title Sanma no Meitantei, right down to the presentation — except the puzzle logic was engineered to be genuinely malicious, with clear conditions no reasonable player would deduce.
The ten-cartridge stunt made it a collector's white whale before it was ever a product. Phoenixx brought it to Switch to coincide with that 2023 broadcast, and a 2024 physical release plus a collector's edition followed. Both are now sold out everywhere, which leaves the digital delisting as the last door closing.
The insider take
The December 30 date is the joke, not a coincidence. That's the slot Seikai wa Ichinen Go traditionally occupies in TBS's year-end schedule, so the game is being switched off on-air, in real time, as a new round of one-year predictions goes out — exactly the kind of self-referential bit this show's staff have built a cult reputation on since its predecessor Quiz: Talent Meikan. Japanese TV tie-in games are usually disposable promo; this one weaponized scarcity and bad design into legitimate folklore among Japanese game collectors. Expect the physical copies to climb on Mercari the week it goes dark.
Originally reported by AUTOMATON (Japanese).