Canada has some issues with Nintendo, but we'll try to work through them politely.
It's not all wine and roses for Canadians as it is, and a simple look at the recent Nintendo Downloads articles will bear that out.
Because of a recent decline in the Canadian dollar from near parity two years ago to $0.80 US today (with the potential to decline further this fall due to a general election causing uncertainty). Nintendo has been somewhat conservative with increasing the price, generally setting the increase at $5-$10 (Splatoon being the first $70 Canadian game from Nintendo, though Super Mario Maker is tentatively at $75) or approximately 20-25% for smaller downloadable titles. Virtual Console games trade at par.
However, the standard problem comes with Nintendo's reticence to drop prices – should the dollar recover compared to the US dollar, it's entirely possible that these prices could stay the same going forward. Although a lot of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One games are sitting at MSRPs of $79.99, they tend to be available for $40 shortly after launch. (See Bloodborne for an example of this.) In addition, some eShop games have had their prices tied to the dollar, so they're increasing above their launch price. Thomas points this out: “But what really annoys me is when these prices go up again randomly down the road and this pricing is keeping me from bothering with some games, e.g. Pushmo World on Wii U”.
The other major Canadian problem cited by Trepanier is major retailers shutting their doors in Canada. Target folded all of its Canadian operations in January, with all the stores shutting down in April. Nintendo of Canada is still one of the largest creditors. This eliminated among other things, the option for always-discounted eShop credit (even if only by 5%). Shortly before Target left, the historic Canadian electronics retailer FutureShop suddenly closed all of its stores on March 28, with a few rebranding under corporate parent Best Buy and the rest simply vanishing. FutureShop's loss was especially felt as they were the creators of the “E3 Preorder Special”, offering major discounts (upwards of 33%) on games preordered online during E3. Best Buy and Amazon have picked up the slack in this regard, but value-conscious Canadians are feeling the pinch.
And Trepanier is well aware of what the loss of two giants means: “These are massive, seismic shifts in the retail landscape in Canada that we are trying to manage as best as possible.”
We asked several Canadian Nintendo fans questions for this article and gave them the opportunity to relay any Canada specific issues. For the most part, the chief concerns were exchange rate related. Though Jason Friedman did mention “The only possible Canada specific problem is that there seem to be fewer Street Pass relay locations here”. As it happens, the only known StreetPass relay spots in Canada are Best Buy stores, as McDonalds stopped service for them in late 2014. Calls to place the relays in Tim Hortons stores have so far gone unanswered.
