An incredibly rare McDonalds-branded Nintendo DSi and software cartridge recently appeared and later disappeared from an online auction website. The Nintendo DS had a number of different variants throughout the handheld hardware's lifespan. Aside from its straight upgrade from the vanilla DS to the DS Lite, Nintendo later introduced an upgraded version of the hardware known as the Nintendo DSi. This redesign added some new features to make it more than a gaming handheld, such as an SD card slot, downloadable software, and a camera.

The Nintendo DSi has some rare variants that were never officially sold. One of these variants was used to train McDonald's employees in Japan, which also had special branding on them. These versions of the Nintendo DSi were sent out to Japanese McDonald's branches in 2010 alongside a specialized game cartridge called eCrew Development Program, which teaches new staff how to cook and serve items via a McDonald's simulator. It also has player profiles and performance statistics for managers to assess as well. These consoles were later replaced with newer touch-screen tablets in 2018, with most of these branded units being sent back, though there are still some out in the wild.

The most recent listing of this elusive training handheld was through a Japanese thrift store known as Hard-Off. Hard-Off had posted photos on Twitter showing off the Nintendo DSi console and the rare DS game cartridge containing the eCDP software. According to J-CAST, this post was immediately deleted after being contacted by McDonald's itself, and even expressed its disappointment that the console was on the second-hand market. Hard-Off even issued an apology on Twitter, and says the console itself is being returned to McDonald's as well. "We will not be selling the training products. We are working towards returning the products to McDonald's Japan. We have no plans to disclose the details of the purchase as this is personal information," said Hard-Off.

<速報>dsIマクドナルド研修用モデルにつきまして

昨日、当店がポストいたしました当該商品につきまして、現在販売を一時中止し、マクドナルド様に正式に確認中です。

おってご報告致しますので今しばらくお待ちくださいませ。お騒がせし大変申し訳ございません。

— ハードオフ船橋習志野台店 (@hf21431) March 19, 2024

Second-hand sales of this rare Nintendo DSi console variant are still quite rampant, as listings on eBay show it being auctioned for at least over $500 USD for just the console itself, with the complete set containing the eCDP game cartridge going for nearly $2000. Despite McDonald's going out of its way to stop people from auctioning off its hardware, there are still a few of these units somewhere in the world.

We will not be selling the training products. We are working towards returning the products to McDonald's Japan. We have no plans to disclose the details of the purchase as this is personal information.

The system was reportedly only produced in the low thousands, making it one of the rarest versions of the Nintendo DS. While the console and system are still quite rare, many gamers learned of its existence through a YouTube documentary of the McDonald's DSi by Nick Robinson, who purchased the system and game for $3000. Dedicated gaming preservationists have archived the ROM on websites like the Internet Archive as well.

Posted: Apr 02, 2024 9:57 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://gamerant.com/mcdonalds-japan-nintendo-dsi-auction-rare/