The 10-Year Hunt for the Lost McDonald's DS Game

"...move on to Japan, because what happens

if you put the world's
best-selling handheld game machine

in the world's biggest burger chain?"

"...DSis donning the McDonald's 'M'

came with unique DS cartridges

containing training software."

"...and Mike, how exactly are they teaching

the McD's members with the...

what is it, the 'NSDS' or something like that?"

"The... the DS."

"Perhaps someone out
there watching this video

knows more than we do.

But for now...

the McDonald's
training game is...

...a mystery."

In the year 2010,

McDonald's Japan announced
something shocking.

In March of that year,
the company revealed

a brand new program to train
part-time McDonald's employees:

a partnership to create an
exclusive piece of software

for the Nintendo DS.

This unassuming little
cartridge would then go on

to become one of the rarest
Nintendo DS games of all time.

Today, I'll be telling you the
story of this legendary game -

and how, in June of 2020,

one of the last known copies disappeared

into the hands of an
anonymous collector forever.

Now this program was a big
deal for McDonald's Japan:

the company claimed this
cartridge would allow them

to train new employees in half the time

it would usually take.

It was a huge investment
for the company, too:

this whole endeavor

of manufacturing and
distributing these carts

was costing them roughly 200
million yen -

or 2 million dollars -

and that's not even counting the cost of developing
the software itself.

And while the title of the game
isn't particularly exciting -

the official name is
"eCrew Development Program" -

the contents of this
cartridge are fascinating.

From what little we know, the
game was surprisingly robust,

with just a ton of personality,
lots of custom sprite work,

and even some rudimentary 3D

for the little boxes
the hamburgers come in.

"This game shows trainees how to assemble

a quarter pounder with cheese.

You can also learn how to cook fries

and clean your workstation."

- And I say 'what little we know' because,

for the past decade,

this game has been
completely lost to time.

For about 10 years now,

this unassuming little blue cartridge

has been the Holy Grail for
many Nintendo collectors.

While, nobody knows precisely

how many copies were manufactured -

estimates range from a few
hundred to a few thousand -

one thing is for sure:

this game, if you can even call it a game,

is highly sought after.

Now, this tactic of taking something

that appeals to the young people of Japan

and deploying it as a recruitment tactic

is something McDonald's Japan
has done many times before.

Among the most memorable examples
would be this anime-style

"Join the McDonald's Crew"
campaign from a few years back

featuring members of
popular idol group AKB48.

This game is so rare, in fact,

that it even spawned conspiracy theories

that it never existed in the first place.

I've come across YouTube comments before

claiming that this game is a total hoax,

and that it's just people mixing up

some Hilton PSP game
for training employees

and transposing a memory onto McDonald's.

And, of course, the existence of

that Bloomberg news report I showed you at the beginning

kind of contradicts the whole
'this game is a hoax' theory.

But, strangely, that Bloomberg news report

has remained the closest look
we've ever gotten at gameplay

for 10 years now.

"And Bloomberg's Mike Fern

went to McDonald's training
center in the heart of Tokyo."

"That game is a little bit
trickier than it looks, actually.

If you don't get everything exactly right,

it won't let you shake your fries.

Japan, the only country where McDonald's

uses the DS to train staff..."

- Somehow, in the time since
that Bloomberg reporter

paid a visit to McDonald's Japan HQ,

we have never really gotten
a close look at the game

and nobody has really gotten
their hands on the cartridge - or, at least,

everybody who has gotten their hands on the cartridge

has kept it completely to themselves.

...or, at least, that WAS the
case until December 2018,

when a user on assembler-games.com named code1038

made the following post

announcing he'd gotten
his hands on the game.

"Hello, guys.

I found this very rarest
cartridge year ago,

and I'm still at same point.

I can't reach hidden menu to
see 3D burger and play games.

I've tried with famous Japanese
speaker to enter in it,

but unfortunatly, I need a code.

I've made this little video what I can do.

Help needed!"

Now, maybe you're
confused, so I'll explain:

code1038 on this forum,

also known as Coddy Trentuit on YouTube,

had actually gotten his hands

on a copy of this coveted game.

However - and here's the
incredibly intriguing part -

he had been stuck for
years on the title screen

because the title screen...

required a password.

Coddy had even included a video

captured directly from
his copy of the game

showing the issue, and sure
enough: this gameplay video -

the only gameplay video we have

of the McDonald's training game -

is only two minutes long,

because he couldn't get
past the title screen.

And while it's only two minutes long,

what's in those two minutes
is unbelievably intriguing.

First off, there's this
amazing opening cutscene:

And then, there's my
personal favorite part:

the incredible main menu music -

which, if you listen closely,

you'll note is a re-orchestrated
chiptune interpretation

of the classic McDonald's
"ba-da-ba-ba-ba!" jingle.

Just listen:

But tragically, this
was all Coddy could see.

Even though he owned the cartridge,

he could only watch that title screen

and get to that main menu over and over -

and had been stuck there,
according to him, for a year.

Now, this in and of
itself is extremely weird:

the idea of a Nintendo game cartridge

with a unique password to
lock out unintended players

is already very unusual.

But the fact that this
functionality was built

into what is also
arguably the single rarest

Nintendo DS game ever manufactured

made the whole thing even more intriguing.

Now, making things even trickier

is the fact that Coddy refused

to share the contents of the cartridge.

In the comments of his video
and all over the internet,

people have begged him to dump the game.

The comments on the video are now locked,

but in this video by the
YouTuber blameitonjorge,

you can see somebody asking
Coddy to please dump the rom

and him saying "that's illegal ;)".

Even going back to his
initial forum thread,

Coddy said "ps: I can't share rom."

And when another user insisted

that Cody dump the cartridge,
he stood firm:

"Law is law, and I've
already stuff for dumping.

Sharing is still illegal by law

and I'm very strict for this point.

I've bad personal experience
about illegal download.

I'm working with people
who are very strict

about information sharing."

In other words, Coddy would
not be dumping the cartridge

and distributing it online,

so picking the game
apart inside the software

and looking for the password
was not gonna be an option.

Now, while researching
all this, I reached out

to a video game
conservationist and translator

named Samuel Messner to ask
him about this phenomenon:

why do collectors keep
these one-of-a-kind games

hoarded for themselves?

"Yeah, so this is an issue
that is a bit hard to dodge,

because whenever you've got
something that's valuable,

the only thing that's gonna drive you

to do anything that decreases
that value is altruism,

and you know, idealism, right?"

- Right.

"And you know, personally,
I'm very much an idealist,

so that's what I would do,

but some people are not very into the idea

that things they have in their collection

would suddenly be worth so much less."

- Now, despite Coddy's
insistence on not sharing,

the members of the now
defunct ASSEMbler Games forum

did their very best to help him out:

they translated the menus for him,

picked apart his extracted
game saves that he uploaded,

attempted to contact Japanese
game collectors for help,

and...

nothing.

They came up completely empty-handed.

Eventually, the forum shut down,

and the quest hit what looked
like a permanent dead-end.

Now, fover a year, this was
where the story ended -

there was no real movement on Coddy's hunt

to get access to this game.

But then, in June of 2020 -
just a few months ago -

there was an enormous development.

Over on Yahoo! Auctions Japan,

a seller by the name of
nanvata_0122 was selling a copy -

an actual copy - of the
McDonald's training game.

And that would have been
exciting enough on its own,

but the thing that made
this auction really special

is that from the photos, you could tell

that whoever this mysterious person is

who was selling the game...

actually had the password.

In all the photos of the game,

you could see it being played -

there was actual gameplay on the screen.

This person had the
password that Coddy needed -

the password for this specific cartridge -

which was completely unprecedented.

Now the thing is... nanvata_0122

clearly knew what this was worth.

Because they listed this auction
at a whopping 345,000 yen -

the equivalent of about
$3,500 US dollars.

Still, the item description was clear"

You weren't just paying
for this very rare game,

and the equally-rare

matte black McDonald's logo branded DSi;

Included in this auction was the code

required to boot the game up.

For the very first time in 10 years,

there was finally a path forward,

a way for the world to
finally see what secrets

the Japanese McDonald's training game had -

but there was an enormous,
350,000-yen roadblock in the way.

Coddy reappeared, now on a new
forum called Obscure Gamers,

and posted: "I found a guy
on Yahoo! Auctions Japan

who has full access to menu.

I need someone to contact
him and get access."

But, of course, that never happened.

No one was able to reach
out to nanvata_0122 -

and, besides, there's no way this person

would be giving up this password.

And then... the auction
just sat there for weeks,

with seemingly no one
willing to fork up the cash

for this very, very, very rare game -

that was, until July 9th,
at 9:00 PM Japan time,

when an anonymous person
placed a sniper bid

at the last second, won the
game... and then vanished.

That was four months ago now.

And ever since that auction ended,

nobody has stepped forward
as the owner of this game.

"In 2020, one was put up for
sale on Yahoo! Japan Auctions

with one of the training cartridges

and sold for the equivalent
of around $3,200."

- Most people have just
assumed that it went

into the hands of a private collector,

someone who's as fascinated as you and I

about Nintendo history, who
has no intention of ever

sharing this precious gem
with the outside world.

Seemingly, this person
was perfectly content

to just enjoy this game themselves

and never let us see what
the gameplay looked like.

Just as quickly as it had appeared,

the game had once again vanished -

and so too had the
world's only opportunity

to actually experience the gameplay

of the McDonald's training game.

And until now, this has
been where this story ends:

an unsatisfying and predictable outcome

that honestly paints a pretty grim picture

of the state of video game preservation.

But I'm here tell you that
there's more to this story.

A lot more.

Because, viewer...

I've been keeping a secret from you.

See, the person who placed that bid...

The person who won that $3,500 auction

for the McDonald's DS game,

the person who now owns the only copy

with the password included...

that person...

...is me.

All right, let's back up.

Four months ago, I received
a comment on one of my videos

saying "You have to make a video

about the lost Japanese DS game

made for McDonald's employees."

And while I don't normally
solicit video ideas

from my YouTube comments, this
idea immediately hooked me.

I had no idea that this cartridge existed,

and the more I looked into it,

the more fascinated I
became by this whole thing.

It wasn't long before I found
myself on a forum thread

where one user said:

"I found an auction, but it's too darn expensive. It ends on Thursday.

The thing is... when I
came across this thread,

it was already Thursday.

Frantically, I clicked the auction link -

and there I was, staring
down a copy of the game

I had just spent an
entire night researching...

...and there were just 30 minutes left.

For that entire half-hour,

I was just pacing in front of my desk,

trying to decide whether
or not this purchase

could be worth it.

I kept talking myself into it,

and then talking myself
out of it, over and over -

and then, finally... I caved.

With two minutes left on the auction,

I clicked the Place Bid button,

and saw... this:

Turns out, the website I was using

had a 300,000 yen limit on my account,

and the auction was
seconds away from ending.

And as I watched it slip
away, I was pretty bummed out -

but also kind of relieved

that this temporary insanity
that had taken over me

hadn't driven me to spend a
preposterous amount of money

on a piece of McDonald's

employee training software from Japan.

With the auction over,
I refreshed the page,

curious to see if some
other last minute bidder

had swooped in and stolen it...

and lo and behold, that's when I realized

that the auction had been
set to automatically re-list.

This meant that I now had six whole days

to formulate a plan to get
my hands on this thing.

Now, maybe you've noticed

that when it comes to
placing the actual bids,

I'm not doing it through
Yahoo! Auctions Japan directly;

I'm doing it through another
website called Buyee.

That's because most sellers
on Yahoo! Auctions Japan

do not offer international shipping.

And that's where Buyee steps in:

in essence, they allow
international customers

like you and me to
shop directly for items

on Yahoo! Auctions Japan,
Mercari, Rakuten,

and a ton of other
Japanese online retailers.

The way Buyee works is
that these items you buy

are then shipped to Buyee's warehouse,

packed together in one package,

and then shipped to you
all as one big thing

to save you time, hassle,
and a lot of money.

Now I've partnered with
Buyee before on videos -

like for this unboxing of
a ton of Japan exclusive

Super Monkey Ball and Mario items -

but this was different.

This time, I was gonna be asking
them a way bigger question:

I wanted to know if there was any chance

Buyee would be willing to help me out

and assist me in securing
this historic video game.

Amazingly... they said yes.

Now, I can't tell you how happy I was

when Buyee said yes to this proposition,

and with their help, I placed the bid,

waited, and then won the auction.

However, there was still one
enormous hurdle left to clear.

See, it's still 2020, and over the summer,

as a temporary precaution
due to [CURRENT WORLD EVENT]

Japan actually halted shipping
in or out of the country.

See, Japan's primary mail
provider is Japan Post,

and Japan Post had an
enormous list of countries

who they were forbidding

all mail to be sent or received from -

and included on that
list was my home country:

the United States of America.

This posed an enormous problem:

I needed to devise a way to somehow

get this game out of Japan

at a time when mailing
things in and out of Japan

was strictly forbidden.

Out of options and desperate
for some sort of resolution,

I knew what I had to do.

...and it's not what you think.

See, normally in a situation like this,

my solution - as you
probably could have guessed

if you've seen my other
videos - would be to go to Japan

and secure the package myself.

But not only had Japan

halted all mail in or out of the country,

they've also halted all tourism
in and out of the country,

so there was no way I'd be getting in.

So I'm sure you can understand
my predicament here:

I effectively had to figure out a way

to book a flight to Tokyo
in search of answers

at a time when booking a flight to Tokyo

in search of answers is
literally against the law.

Luckily, I had an ace up my sleeve.

See, around this time last year,

my younger brother Mark
actually moved to Tokyo

to go to university -

and while all foreign residents of Japan,

including people with student visas,

have been forbidden from leaving

and re-entering the country
during the pandemic,

my brother had just been
granted special permission

to head back to the United
States for a few weeks

for a mandatory medical checkup.

And by the way, just to reassure you,

he got his checkup and everything's fine.

So here's my idea:

If I could somehow get
this game into Mark's hands

before his flight back to America,

he could theoretically
smuggle the McDonald's DS

out of Japan in his luggage,

and the package would be secure.

For whatever reason,

I felt a real sense of
urgency with this mission:

blameitonjorge's video that
mentioned this McDonald's game

had shined an enormous spotlight on it,

and I couldn't shake the feeling

that someone else might beat
me to the punch on this.

Now, a couple of weeks
after winning the auction,

the item finally arrived
at Buyee's warehouse -

but I was really, really
running out of time.

By this point, it was July 28th,

and my brother's flight to
America was just 3 days away -

an incredibly narrow window
to get this thing delivered.

So if this item didn't arrive quickly,

this plan was doomed.

For two very stressful days,

this possibility hung over my head

that after all this work -
after all the money we'd spent

and after everything else
had lined up so perfectly -

a simple scheduling issue
could unravel this entire plan.

Then, on July 30th,

I got this Discord
message from my brother:

The package had been secured.

"So while I was packing up my stuff

to get ready to return to
America here in a few days,

I am pretty sure that I
heard a certain package

arrive at my doorstep,

so we're gonna go check that out.

Oh-ho-ho!

Not only is the inside
of this cardboard box

an incredibly rare, one-of-a-kind make and model of DS -

it also could potentially hold

trade secrets of the
McDonald's corporation.

So I'm gonna be very careful opening this.

Who knows what kind of...

This could be bugged.

I could have the McDonald's corporate team

busting down my door with
riot shields any second now.

Oh, my goodness."

- With barely a day
left before his flight,

Mark safely packed the McDonald's DS

into his enormous blue suitcase,

and soon he was on his way
to Tokyo's Haneda Airport.

And to be honest with you, the particulars

of whether or not Mark
would even be able to leave

were kind of a big question mark.

Jumping through the hoops

to get all the paperwork filled out

so that Mark could return
home was an enormous hassle,

and there was no real guarantee

he would even be able to leave,

much less get back into the country.

Mark entered the airport, and
with virtually all flights

in and out of Japan canceled
due to the pandemic,

Haneda's international
terminal was a ghost town.

Everywhere he looked,
seats were blocked off

forbidding people from
sitting next to each other -

a measure that ultimately
proved redundant,

since almost every seat in
the airport was unoccupied.

Soon, it was time for Mark's flight,

and a few minutes later,

Mark found himself onboard
a virtually empty airplane

from Tokyo to the United States.

Meanwhile, halfway across the world,

me and my family were on
our way to the airport

to go meet Mark and see
him for the first time

since the pandemic.

I was extremely excited:

excited, of course, to see my brother

for the first time since 2019 -

something that seemed almost
impossible to pull off

in the midst of COVID - but also excited

that the world would
finally get a close look

at this legendary and mysterious game

for the first time ever.

We arrived at the airport masked up,

and after patiently waiting
for what felt like forever,

watching handfuls of masked passengers

slowly trickle out of the gates,

finally... we saw him.

He had arrived.

It's hard to overstate

how great a feeling it
was to see Mark again.

The whole situation with travel in Japan

had really led me to
believe that he may not

get to see us this summer at all,

and that we may not see
him until next year.

But in all the excitement of seeing Mark,

something slipped through the cracks -

something I didn't realize right away.

If I'd been looking closely,
I would have noticed

that the enormous blue suitcase

that Mark had packed the McDonald's DS in...

He didn't have it.

"Do you know... your... bag didn't come?"

"So the bag is delayed..."

- Mark explained to me

that due to a baggage
snafu with the airline,

his luggage had not wound up
on his flight home with him.

So... I'd be lying if I said

that this situation was not terrifying.

I mean, here we had this
incredibly rare game -

an item that virtually never
showed up on auction sites,

a game that as far as I know,
doesn't exist anywhere else

in the United States,

a game that seemingly nobody
had the password to access except for me -

and we'd have to rely on an airline

who'd already misplaced it
once to ever get it back.

This was a truly helpless feeling.

There was really nothing we could do here

except just exercise
some patience and wait.

Well... almost nothing.

The one thing I could
do... was start preparing.

See, even if everything went perfectly

and the airline found this
bag and returned it to us,

that was only half the battle.

I didn't just want to own

this McDonald's training cartridge -

I wanted to document it.

I wanted to finally give the
world its first up-close look

at what the McGameplay
actually consisted of.

See, if I was gonna do this -

if I was gonna put in
all this time, effort,

energy, and money - I wanted
to do it the right way:

I wanted to capture the game
as it was actually played

by McDonald's employees back in 2010

running on actual Nintendo hardware.

So I started looking into solutions,

and pretty quickly I
realized what I wanted

was a 3DS modified for video capture.

But here's the thing:

In 2020, getting your hands
on a 3DS capture device

is much easier said than done.

For example, check out this
MLIG video from last April:

"I wish we could say
we were able to show you

great ideas that you can go
and try for yourself right now,

but the reality is that at this moment,

the 3DS is in kind of a bad place."

- And what they say in that
video is completely true:

the availability of hardware-modified 3DSs in 2020

has dried up almost entirely.

And from doing a ton of research,

I realized that there was
really only one person

left on Earth who could
help me with this problem,

and that was a console
modder based out of Germany

named Stefan Merki.

"Wir bieten seit mehr als zwei Jahren

Installationen von 3DS Capture Cards."

For years now, Stefan has
run a shop called merki.net

where he sells capture
cards and hardware mods

for the Nintendo 3DS.

This site came up over
and over in my research:

by all accounts, Stefan
was one of the best

and most reliable
hardware modders out there,

able to install a full
suite of capture devices

and other useful hardware modifications,

and he seemed like a perfect
fit for this project.

So, excitedly, I went to Stefan's website

and... he had stopped selling them.

"We chatted a bit via email with Merki,

a European distributor for
both Katsukity and Loopy kits,

and he tells us that he is
also getting out of the game

once his existing stock is depleted.

He seems to believe that his business

can no longer count on
receiving a return on investment

for additional 3DS hardware."

- Stefan had just posted an
open letter on his website

announcing that he was, sure
enough, out of the modding game:

retiring after seven long years

of modding Nintendo hardware for a living.

Still, I knew I had to try.

So I reached out to Stefan personally.

I pleaded with this man -

the Hattori Hanzo of 3DS
hardware modification -

trying my hardest to persuade
this master of his craft

into coming out of
retirement for one last job.

I explained the situation to Stefan:

that I was painfully
close to getting my hands

on this ultra-rare DS game,

and that I needed one of his devices

to share it with the world.

And it took some
convincing, but eventually...

he agreed.

But there was a caveat:

Stefan said he would need me to send him

some American 3DS hardware to modify,

so I went out and purchased
a brand new New 2DS XL

and mailed it off to Germany.

"You're left-handed, too."

- "Yep."

"We're the smart ones."

- "That's what I hear."

More on that later.

In the meantime, I also continued

to closely monitor this
piece of lost luggage.

Balancing all these things:

the auction, the missing baggage,

trying to persuade a retired German modder

to make me a custom 3DS for capture -

it was overwhelming trying to keep

all these plates spinning
at once, especially knowing

that if even one of these
things fell through,

the whole project would likely fall apart.

Eventually, after hours of checking

the luggage delivery link
over and over and over,

an update came in the next day.

- "Yeah? Wait, what's it say?"

"Airlines Baggage Information delivery info."

- "Oh, okay."

"This is from an email address called

Welcome to WheresMySuitcase.com."

- (laughs) "Where IS your suitcase?"

"Recently, your baggage was delayed

while flying into Raleigh-Durham
International Airport.

You're seeing this email

because we will be handling your delivery

on behalf of American Airlines."

- "So far, so good."

"We have entered your
baggage claim into our system

and are working with the airline

to get your baggage as
fast to you as possible.

If all goes according to plan,

we'll get this bag by tonight at 10:00 PM."

- "I mean, this is the
closest I've ever been

to this McDonald's DS.

The trajectory is correct.
It's on the right path."

"It's in spitting distance."

- "It's passed so many hands, you know?

Who can really trust...

what if a little Greedy Gus at the airport

snuck his hand in there

and decided he wanted
a McDonald's Game Boy?

Who can say?"

"So there's your info."

- "Thank you."

- "Oh, what?! What the...

Are you ser-...?"

The baggage had apparently
arrived at our airport

and was set to be delivered
to our house that night.

And then, on August 4th at 10:00 PM,

there was a knock on the door:

"Hi!"
- "Hi.

This is for Mark?"

"Yep. That's it."

- "Awesome. Thank you so much."

"Absolutely. Have a good night."

- "You too.

Oh, my gosh..."

It had arrived.

-"Here it is... this is it, right, Mark?"

"Yup!

Very precious cargo."

- "Indeed."

- "We got the goods..."

"This is smuggled...

across country borders."

- "Multiple states.

It's changed hands

more times than I can
count, between postmen...

Oh, my gosh."

"Everything is all jumbled up in here.

This is NOT how I had everything."

- "Well, I suspect it
was packed pretty safely

by our friend in Japan, right?

Oh my God. Is this..?"

"There's part one.

...where is part two...?

Wait a minute...

- "There's no way somebody... would snatch it..?"

"Here it is."

(huge sigh of relief, laughter)

- "You never know with TSA, dude."

"I thought maybe like, yeah, there's
a lithium ion battery in it...

and they wouldn't let me check it through.

That was the thought in my head just now

why they could have taken it."

- "Getting lithium batteries
through customs can be tricky."

- "I believe what you
have here is the charger."

- "Okay."

"I think this is the actual device."

- "Okay."

"That's based on how much it weighs."

- "All right."

- "So you haven't opened
this part yet, right?"

"I haven't opened anything."

- "This is a huge moment.

Oh, my gosh.

This is so thoroughly wrapped,

and I'm grateful.

It needed every bit of wrapping here.

Okay, hang on a second.

There's something pretty
interesting going on here.

You ready?

(wheezing) That is beautiful.

Look at the matte black McDonald's logo.

MKBHD would get a kick out
of this, I think.

It's in such good condition, too.

Shouts out to the McDonald's
employee who took -"

"So it has a cartridge?
It's not just pre-installed?"

- "Oh, buddy.

That's an unassuming cartridge

with incredibly high
value... and precious data.

And then what is going on over here?

What is this second thing?

So this number, from the
YouTube videos I've seen

of the people who can't
get past the title screen,

I'm pretty sure there's a
six digit code that's needed.

Wait, there's ANOTHERone?

There's TWO? What?!

Two McDonald DSis here.

Wow, they're both like in
incredible condition too.

That matte texture is so nice.

The DSi is a very beautiful
and underrated device.

And then, let's see

what's the last piece of the puzzle here...

Mark, I think your suspicion is correct.

I think this is just a pretty
standard DSi charger here.

Oh, my god.

Wow. Beautiful.

Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mark."

"Yeah, yeah!"

- "and thank you, Robert, for filming."

At long last, this ultra rare game -

and, allegedly, the password
for it - was in our hands:

This incredibly rare,
McDonald's-branded DSi;

this even rarer McDonald's
Japan employee training game;

and, arguably the most
precious part of all,

the long lost, unique six-digit password

that would let us access the game

for the first time in 10 years.

Finally, at long last, the
game was safely in our hands,

and that meant that there was only

one piece of the puzzle left.

And sure enough, a few days later,

another package arrived,
this time from Germany,

containing the modded New 2DS XL.

This was the final piece -

this was the last ingredient necessary

to share this game with the world.

The only obstacle left to
surmount was the language barrier.

I can't read Japanese, but
I know somebody who can.

So I reached out to Samuel Messner again

and asked him if he'd be down to join me

for this first-ever playthrough

of the McDonald's DS training game.

He agreed.

- I'm excited to see the icon for it.

- Yes. Good point.

This is a big moment for me.

I have not actually
turned this game on yet.

I've played zero seconds of this,

as has everyone in the United States,

as far as I can tell.

- Oh, my God, it's fancy.

- Dang, I kind of wish that

that was what the cartridge looked like,

because it's got kind of a "Feel
the Magic: XY/XX" vibe to it.

Dude.

- [Both] I'm loving it!

- I'm loving it!

I AM loving it.

FMV!!

Oh my god.

Dude.

Happy McDonald's customers
all over the world.

So this opening video was on YouTube,

but I avoided watching it

'cause I didn't want to
take away from that moment,

and I made the right call.

Wowie.

All right, so we got
three menu options here -

Can you help me out with these?

- Yeah. So the first
one is password input.

The second is password,
like change your password.

And the third one is serial code input,

which is probably what
we're gonna wanna do here.

- Oh, interesting.

I feel like I'm defusing a bomb here.

Dude. I don't know if you caught that:

It's got the ba-da-ba-ba-ba jingle.

It's incredible.

It's so spiritual.

Okay, this has to be it,

because it's a six digit
code that only takes numbers.

All right, let's punch this in.

Four.

Eight.

Five.

Oops.

Is this backspace in the lower right?

- Yeah, it is.

- Four, eight, two.

Such a distractingly beautiful song.

All right, here we go.

What does it say at the bottom?

- Complete input.

All right, let's see here.

Oh, no!

'What you have entered is incorrect.

Please enter the correct information.'

- This moment, in all honesty,
scared the crap out of me.

My mind flooded with
terrifying possibilities:

Had this DS cartridge save
game been wiped somehow?

Had the seller sent me the wrong copy?

Or, worst of all: were these photos... fake?

Had we been straight-up scammed here?

- What if it's the password?

What if they set the password to be...

'Cause it is a six digit password.

- Try it. Yeah, why not?

- I hope so, 'cause I don't
know what I'm gonna do

if this doesn't work.

- And here it says, please
enter the six digit password

that you yourself have decided.

This is where I'm unsure
whether this will actually work.

- All right. 482500.

I'm hoping this works.

Yes!

- Yeah!

- All right.

We're in.

- We're in uncharted territory, man.

- Dude.

The password... had worked.

Wow, we got the buns.

Two pickles.

That's an iconic bit of McDonald's lore.

Two patties.

I think I'm done.

Oh, it's 3D!

Now our full playthrough of
this game took over an hour,

so I'm gonna spare you
from watching all of that

and just show you the highlights:

- Is this my name..?

Oh my god.

All right, let's go with this guy, then.

Oh, let's get the egg.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh, this sound design is so good.

Are you hearing that?

Dude, the fact that it's
like a sprite of a cow

with a McDonald's M on it!!

- 'Hey, my name is Donald McDonald.'

- Okay, how many pickles
on a double cheeseburger?

- Easy.

We're now getting an isometric
view of the whole store.

- Whoa.

- Oh, my god.

- Okay...

...it says that you can send
an encouraging message

to someone else in the McDonald's crew.

- Dude.

Dude, that is incredible.

- Now, as we played through this game,

we just kept making discovery
after fascinating discovery:

- Is that Ronald McDonald's hand?

- Way too much to put in this video.

And, side note, if you're one
of the people crazy enough

to wanna watch all 73
minutes of this playthrough,

you can just click the Join
button underneath this video,

and you'll get access to the entire thing

as one of my channel members.

Anyways:

It goes without saying that this was

an immensely satisfying moment:

playing through this
game for the first time,

and having a translator
by my side to help out.

It felt like a victory.

- It's a great piece of history
that we've uncovered here,

and I'm looking forward to
sharing it with the world.

- Yeah, and thank you for doing your part

for video game preservation, man.

This'll be the first video
material in the world

that actually goes into
properly what the game is like.

This has existed exclusively

within the memories for like decades.

Let's be honest, though.

No one was gonna document

the McDonald's DS game before you.

- However....

(dry chuckle)

About one week after I recorded
my playthrough with Samuel,

I was catching up with
a friend over FaceTime

and she asked me what
I'd been up to lately.

So I walked her through this whole story -

the long lost game, the
Bloomberg video, the auction;

the French guy, Coddy Trentuit,

who had a copy but couldn't get in

because he didn't have the
password, et cetera, et cetera -

and how I had just managed
to get to it myself.

And she says to me,
"So, wait: that password,

was it an employee ID number or what?"

So I go to Coddy's video to show her

the exact password screen
the guy was stuck on,

and I noticed something new.

While showing her Coddy's video,

I spotted something in the description

that I hadn't seen before:

a new message that had been edited in

since the last time I watched it.

In French, in all capital
letters: 'IDENTIFIANTS TROUVEE' -

and beneath that,

'LOGINS FOUNDS !!' with a YouTube link.

I clicked the link.

And it took me to a livestream archive,

broadcast on YouTube, with
131 views - 58 minutes long -

...and it actually works.

He gets in, plays through the entire game,

just like me and Samuel did.

And - here's the really devastating part:

Coddy's playthrough had been
streamed live to YouTube

on August 30th, 2020.

My playthrough with Samuel?

That was on September 18th -
barely two weeks later.

We'd been beaten.

I gotta be honest with you here,

this was a little bit heartbreaking.

To have come this far and
put in all this effort...

I was kicking myself:

If I just moved a little faster,

procrastinated a little less,

I could have been the actual first one

to document this game.

At the same time, though,

I was happy for Coddy - and
also mystified by the fact

that he'd somehow gotten the
password for his cartridge.

I mean, we all know how I got
the password for my version;

but how the hell did Coddy get his?

Well, strap in, because Coddy's journey

to get his cartridge's password
is even crazier than my own.

Over on that Obscure Gamers forum thread

from the beginning of this video,

Coddy tells the full story.

In short, he was able through
a friend to meet in person

with the IT director of
McDonald's in his country -

presumably McDonald's France.

Upon seeing the McDonald's DS,

this IT guy freaked out, said "don't move,"

and then brought it to
the desk of none other

than the CEO - truly the 'Scott,
president of Domino's Pizza'

of this particular story.

It turns out, the CEO's wife is Japanese,

and she herself had actually worked

at McDonald's Japan corporate -

meaning she knew exactly who to contact

about Coddy's problem.

Weeks later, Coddy found
himself on an email chain

with employees from McDonald's
Europe, McDonald's UK,

McDonald's Australia, and
of course... McDonald's Japan.

This email chain, according to Coddy,

was loaded with information,

including scans of PDFs
of the game's manual...

but unfortunately, they weren't
able to give him a password,

as the individual passwords

were set by individual
McDonald's store management.

Now, a lot of people would've
given up there... but not Coddy.

He kept going.

And the actual explanation
of what Cody did next

is pretty technical and
honestly way above my head,

but at this point, Coddy actually
dove into the code itself.

He took apart the game's ROM,

comparing the McDonald's
training cartridges save data

with other DS games and
began to find similarities.

Then, incredibly, Coddy
made a huge discovery:

he stumbled across a
string of code in the game

that contained translations

of the two-character hex code

for every single letter and
number in the password screen.

From there, he kept hunting,
and then found the entry

in the code for crew members...

and at that point, he had
everything he needed.

The username? "LE1038".

and the password he needed?

Zero...

zero zero...

zero...

...zero...

...zero.

He was in.

I could not stop smiling when
I first read Coddy's story.

This guy had jumped through

about a billion hoops and roadblocks

to solve a very inconsequential mystery -

and to me, that made me feel like he and I

are kindred spirits in a way.

But also... I'd be lying if I said

I wasn't a little heartbroken

that Coddy had ultimately
beaten me to the punch.

But the irony wasn't lost on me either:

This entire time, without
either one of us knowing it,

Coddy and I had been racing
in parallel, neck and neck,

to the same finish line.

And, unfortunately for
me, Coddy had beaten me,

fair and square, by just a couple of days.

Still, I was determined to
make this adventure worth it.

I had come too far to
just throw all this away

because someone else beat me
to putting this on YouTube.

And after thinking about it for awhile,

I think I figured out what I can do.

See, as of today, the only two people

we know for sure have access to this game

are Coddy and myself.

And as cool as that scarcity is,

I think I want this game to be something

that everybody can enjoy -

and Cody's made it abundantly clear

that he plans to never, ever dump his copy.

After spending months on this project

and reading tons and tons
of forum threads about it,

one thing I feel pretty confident about

is that people really want
to see this game preserved -

both just to check the
game out for themselves,

and also out of principle.

So, one last time, I reached
out to Samuel about my idea,

and Samuel put me in touch

with a game preservationist named sCZther.

sCZther walked me through the process

of using some software
called GodMode9 on my 3DS

to dump the game cartridge
itself in its entirety.

The game cartridge itself and, crucially, my save file -

since the game requires a password.

And, after jumping through a few hoops...

...we were successful.

So, I am happy to announce

that if you or anyone
else watching this video

wants to play this long-lost

Japanese McDonald's
training game for yourself:

I've created a page on archive.org

where I've uploaded the
ROM and my save file

and some basic instructions,

and you can download it and
start playing with it today.

Have fun.

It's only recently, now that
this whole thing is over,

that I've been able to
reflect on just how bizarre

and uniquely international
this journey was.

The quest to get my hands on this game

involved a German 3DS hacker,
a pseudonymous French rival,

a game archivist from the Czech Republic,

international smuggling -

and, for the second time in my life,

the Japanese arm of an
American fast food company.

I still don't really understand
why this keeps happening -

why I seem fated to pursue
these trivial stories

about companies like Domino's
Japan or McDonald's Japan.

And though I don't know how
things turned out this way,

there's one thing I know for sure:

I'm lovin' it.

(laughter)

...stupid ending.

Before we wrap up, I have
three really quick notes:

first and foremost,

I'd like to extend a huge
thank you, once again,

to Buyee for sponsoring this video

and for helping preserve this weird

little piece of internet history.

There's a link in the description

of this video that gives
you a free 2,000 yen coupon

to any new Buyee users who sign up -

It's a great service, I've
used it a ton of times,

so if you wanna thank Buyee
for making this video possible,

please consider clicking this link

and checking the site out.

Also, in the time since the story began,

Buyee has opened up
international shipping via DHL,

so getting stuff in and out
of Japan is now a breeze.

Also, a huge shout out to Jennifer Walton,

who composed that phenomenal
reorchestrated version

of the McDonald's training game menu theme

that you heard at the
very end of this video.

Couldn't have done it without her.

I still laugh every time
I listen to that song.

It's so perfect.

Here's a link to that
if you want to hear it.

Secondly, the link to download

the McDonald's DS game rom that I dumped

is linked in the description below,

so please check that out.

And lastly: you might have noticed

that right next to the Subscribe button,

I now have a Join button under my videos.

Basically, if you'd like to support me

making more videos like
this one, you can do so

for just 5 bucks a month, and get access

to all sorts of free extras

like me and Samuel's full,
hour-long playthrough

of the McDonald's DS game,

commentary tracks for my older
videos, and so much more.

Thanks for watching and
I'll see you next time.