The campaign sign at Shinjuku Tsutaya. It appears that this was just a one shop thing.

Remember that Square Enix bottom-line-destroying campaign Tsutaya was holding for Final Fantasy XIII? I detailed it here last week. Basically, anyone who pre-ordered FFXIII from the Shinjuku Tsutaya by September 30 would receive a buyback ticket guaranteeing a used trade-in value of ¥7,500 provided the game was traded back within a week of its release date. This amounted to a ¥900 one week rental (Tsutaya marketed it as ¥480, but they forgot to include the tax).

The September 30 deadline has already passed, so if you want to take advantage of the offer, you're out of luck. Not that it matters anyway, as Tsutaya has apparently cancelled the deal!

Gadget News reported last week that Tsutaya officials cancelled the promotion after determining that it "broke the rules." The shop placed calls to all those who had pre-ordered and apologized.

So whose "rules" were broken exactly? And did Tsutaya receive any threats from Squenix? Gadget News says that it asked a clerk but was told "We can only say that it broke the rules."

The site did note that the resemblance of the promotion to a rental program may have actually been illegal. Video game rentals are illegal here in Japan. CD rentals are okay though.

Regardless of the lack of guarantees, it's still likely that you'll be able to get a good deal if you sell back your copy of Final Fantasy XIII early -- you know, after you realize how much it sucks (I'm just joking... I totally can't wait for the game!). I traded back my copy of Dragon Quest IX (as I wrote before, this was because it was consuming too much of my time, so I simply had to get rid of it) at Tsutaya and ended up with the equivalent of a one week ¥1,000 rental.