Yahoo! Auction in Japan has been used in creative ways before, but now we are seeing an auction that’s not even an auction at all.

The item in question is a set of 10 vintage 80s Nintendo games, but this auction isn’t about the item. It’s a contest that would require some keen detective work to solve. The person who can correctly identify the location where the games were photographed  will get them all for free. To spice things up, the “seller” also put up some hints and further photos of the area.  Think you can figure it out?

The games up for grabs consist of; The Krion Conquest, TMNT2, TMNT 3, Super Contra, Castlevania, Moai Kun, Bucky O’Hare, Adventure Island IV, Fighbird, and STED.

Including the photo above, the seller, heimin7777, put a wider shot of the games on the bench along with some general pictures of the scenery. The pictures of the water seem to hide something – a type of structure – in their reflections.  Also, underneath the scenery photos a cryptic message of “Is there history here…?”

In the description section, the rules state that you must post your answer in the Q&A section page for this auction/contest. You can only submit one guess per post and one person can post only twice. The deadline to guess is 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, 17 February, and the answer will be revealed at 8:00 p.m. the same day.

Some hints are also listed by the seller:

1)   All shots were taken using natural light, and no image processing was done.
2)   It’s a place in Japan, and it’s a place anyone can enter.
3)   The photo was taken at 2:00 p.m. in February this year. The shooting date was cloudy.
4)   I chose this place on a whim.
5)   While I was walking around some on-duty police asked me what I was doing.
6)   It was a far trip for me to take.
7)   It’s a place that’s also posted on some video sites.
8)   It’s not in Hokkaido or Okinawa.

They later state that more hints will come if no correct guesses are made by the deadline. In the event that no one guesses the answer correctly they will donate the games to charity.

The seller also mentioned that he’s interested in an active posting session, so your comments don’t have to be serious. Just don’t spam the board with random guesses.

My original thought was the Imperial Palace in Tokyo but that was the first place suggested by a contestant. As of this writing there have been 36 posts suggesting places from Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, to Kurume Suiten-gu in Fukuoka with no correct answer.

So if you think you have what it takes to track down this mystery spot, have at it! Get it right and you too can be the proud owner of some obsolete game software!

Source: Yahoo! Auction via Internet Watch (Japanese)