In Japan, Square Enix releases new Dragon Quest titles on weekends up till this very day. This practice has been long abandoned by most companies, including Nintendo.

A long running myth about why this is the case is because the Japanese government banned Square Enix from releasing games on weekdays as too many school children were skipping classes to pick up their new games.

Dragon Quest XI producer Yuu Miyake confirms that the myth is true, but there was no government intervention behind releasing new Dragon Quest titles on weekends, but the police did complain about it. Here’s Miyake’s explanation:

“In short, yes that is true. When Dragon Quest III came out, tons and tons of kids skipped school to go buy the game. The police actually said, ‘You guys need to do something about this. This is not okay.’ [This was] back in the era of Enix, and so Dragon Quest started being sold only on Saturdays. Actually, it’s the only [series] sold on Saturday.