Ninja Gaiden NES Canadian release??? Anyone from Quebec have any insight here?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

So a local friend of mine, @Joyomofrobro, was showing me a few items from his collection, and his Ninja Gaiden stood out as a major oddity.  See for yourselves:

Obviously, those are full-box stickers on the front and back of the box, and the bilingualism suggests it was done for the Quebec market.  Sadly, as it was used, and found in Alberta, there is no indication whether it came with a French manual added in like the Color Dreams carts sent to France did, but I'm curious whether this was a widespread thing or if he's got a major one-off.  In 25 years of collecting I have not come across anything like this, but I'm also not really in the market for variants either.  The cart and manual included are both -USA (as is the box technically, the front and back are stickers after all).  It's not often I see something new in this hobby, so I'd love to know more if anyone has more info.

[Joyomofrobro | 207]

Better pictures that may help for viewing, no protector box visuals!

[JamesRobot | 5,839]

I have a Canadien Zelda II.  Cart, instructions, box, and NP card are all bilingual.  I am not really sure how it came into my collection.  I've had it for at least 20 years.  The cart and instructions are NES-AL-CAN.

[DK | 267]

I have never seen a full box sticker like that on any game.

However! Years ago I saw a listing for a Final Fantasy game that was a US box, but with a Mattel/Canadian sticker on the front bottom right.

I didn't save a picture, but I do have the broken auction link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-NES-Lot-Of-14-Games-CIB-Final-Fantasy-Punchout/192419020255

Wayback machine doesn't have it, not sure if there is any way to look at years-old Ebay listings anymore.

Anyways - at least there is more than one US game with a Canadian sticker on it out there.

Theory: Companies wanted to sell NES games in Canada at the same time they were available to the US, but the boxes/manuals for the Canadian market weren't ready. They used US versions and slapped stickers on the boxes to satisfy the French/English Canadian requirements. Once the real boxes were ready they stopped doing this. 

So, in my opinion very legit and very uncommon. Probably a nice piece for the Canadian NES historians out there.

[JamesRobot | 5,839]

11 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

full-box stickers

Aha, didn't click with me that it was a sticker.  Crazy.

[Joyomofrobro | 207]

3 hours ago, DK said:

I have never seen a full box sticker like that on any game.

However! Years ago I saw a listing for a Final Fantasy game that was a US box, but with a Mattel/Canadian sticker on the front bottom right.

I didn't save a picture, but I do have the broken auction link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-NES-Lot-Of-14-Games-CIB-Final-Fantasy-Punchout/192419020255

Wayback machine doesn't have it, not sure if there is any way to look at years-old Ebay listings anymore.

Anyways - at least there is more than one US game with a Canadian sticker on it out there.

Theory: Companies wanted to sell NES games in Canada at the same time they were available to the US, but the boxes/manuals for the Canadian market weren't ready. They used US versions and slapped stickers on the boxes to satisfy the French/English Canadian requirements. Once the real boxes were ready they stopped doing this. 

So, in my opinion very legit and very uncommon. Probably a nice piece for the Canadian NES historians out there.

I think there was never actually another Canadian box made besides this full box stickered variant for Ninja Gaiden!

[Joyomofrobro | 207]

I thank Video Game Trader a local store for selling me the only one they ever had: https://www.videogametrader.ca/

[Renmauzo | 1,205]

Nintendo was pretty good about adhering to Québec language laws back in the NES and SNES days if the release was considered big enough. I still remember when I could go into department stores and buy a Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past fully translated in French. Later, in the GBA days, I remember there being a number of publishers that didn't bother printing either bilingual boxes or those bilingual slip sheets (those games that are sealed twice with a French manual) and so they couldn't be sold in Québec; we'd get a fair number of customers who would drive from Montréal, QC to Ottawa, ON to buy certain games (Riviera immediately comes to mind) that they couldn't get in Québec which is about a 2hr trip each way.

Interesting stuff, cool looking Ninja Gaiden.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

The thing about it is that Nintendo was the only publisher that made -CAN regional games.  That's why this is an anomaly to me...it's not a Nintendo-published game.  Was this an early attempt at satisfying Quebec's language laws, or did some store independently do this on their own?  I've never seen anything like this that wasn't Nintendo-published, so I have no clue how common this was.

 

[Joyomofrobro | 207]

4 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

The thing about it is that Nintendo was the only publisher that made -CAN regional games.  That's why this is an anomaly to me...it's not a Nintendo-published game.  Was this an early attempt at satisfying Quebec's language laws, or did some store independently do this on their own?  I've never seen anything like this that wasn't Nintendo-published, so I have no clue how common this was.

 

I think it was done by the Tecmo company they at time had a outlet in California says on box distributed by them!

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 hour ago, Joyomofrobro said:

I think it was done by the Tecmo company they at time had a outlet in California says on box distributed by them!

It may have been done at the retail level though, that's why I'm not really sure what to think.  The carts were distributed from Japan, the Cali address is simply where Tecmo's American branch was located.