If there is hope, it lies with the parents.
One of the key factors Trepanier cites in how Canadians have taken to Nintendo is a simple matter of cost. “Also, consumers are more value conscious than in other markets. They’re a lot more price sensitive so when we work with our retail partners and put in price promotions, they react more in Canada than in other markets.”
And it bears out with how many people we asked became Nintendo fans. On the whole, the theme seems to be that parents or relatives started us down the road.
Daniel Fields (Nintendo fan): “For as long as I can remember I have had a Nintendo system in my house. Starting with the NES with Duck Hunt followed soon-after by Mario All-Stars collection and Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo.”
Haziq Agha: “My parents have always allowed my brother and myself to play games since we were fairly young – My brother was around 8 and I was around 3 years old. The first game I ever played is probably the same as a lot of other people – Super Mario Bros. on the NES."
Wally: “I honestly had no idea about Nintendo until my father brought back a system after a business trip to Las Vegas. He came home late, woke up my brother and I, proceeded to hook it up and play it, and then made us go to bed while we listened from our bedrooms."
Even now, parents look to Nintendo as we've become older. RPGCast host Anna Marie Privitere, who recently moved to the United States from Canada, explains: “Most of my American friends have very specific game tastes and/or are parents, and so consciously choose not to play violent games (particularly around their kids).”
The same is true in Canada even now, as Splatoon – a less violent shooter – was pulling in pre-order numbers similar to Mario Kart 8 prior to launch. Part of it was the extreme marketing, as a prominent Toronto mall had their fountain shooting ink with a Splatoon logo for several days around launch. But the idea of a kid-friendly shooter appealed to a lot of parents, according to some local retail sources.
In the Trepanier interview, he mentioned that the 3DS is struggling a bit compared to the Wii U. However, it seems Canada has not had the issues with mobile eating up market share common in other countries. A large part of this is that Canada has, for several years, paid some of the highest cell phone rates in the developed world according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).
At least one of the major Canadian cell phone carriers thinks we should be paying more, so the possibility of hand-me-down smart phones taking a bite out of the handheld market is lessened. Also, Canada only started seeing the two-year contract become standard in 2013, where it was three years before that. So it's less likely to have a hand-me-down smart phone that still plays games of recent vintage.
