The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild went on to perform extremely well for Nintendo across the Wii U and Switch both from a physical and digital perspective. Nintendo hasn’t stopped singing its praises for roughly a year now, but just recently Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime explained how popular the series is in Canada.
Reggie “can’t tell you why” it is that way, but it is! Speaking to the Toronto Star, Reggie notes: “There are certain franchises that overperform in the Canadian market. Legend of Zelda is one. I can’t tell you why but the Canadian consumer loves it. Every single game in the series has done better with the Canadian audience than the US audience, and the US audience does better than Europe or Japan. Another phenomenon, and this is a recent trend, over the last 10 years is Pokemon. Pokemon games do exceptionally well [in Canada].”
Speaking of Pokemon, Reggie is not only proud of the way Nintendo markets to kids (a dicey subject with tons of legislation around it), but he’s actively glad that other publishers don’t. After explaining that he’s “happy” that Nintendo’s competitors don’t actively pursue younger age groups, he elaborates: “It’s been an incredibly important market because the kid who’s 5 or 6 today is going to be 12 or 13 and not all that many years later 18 or 19. And when you have an affinity for Pokemon or The Legend of Zelda series or Mario Kart or Super Mario Bros. that affinity carries with you.”
He can definitely add Splatoon to that list.
E3 interview with Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aimé: What’s so special about Canadian videogamers? [Toronto Star]
Source: Destructoid Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime says Zelda sells like hotcakes in Canada