i dont get it...

[toomasio]

if cdn dollar is more expensive..and its the same price in canada,

wouldnt EA/hmx just be making free money basically? why would they want people from canada to force themselves to buy it from the states?

even if they delayed some shipments...wouldnt they want to send as much as they could to canada? If they met the cdn market needs..they would be making about 20 bucks free money on each order. that adds up.

really stupid and ******ed market move on EA's part. makes no sense to me at all.

[xenopherus]

Ebay sellers will gladly take your money for Rock Band. Just think - you could have a Rock Band Special Edition bundle in your hands by the end of this week!!!

[toomasio]

ha.. they are going for about 300 bucks right now. apparently some cdns are willing to pay that much.

i think ill just wait.

[MrNazraq]

There are more people in California than there are in the whole country of Canada. The Canadian dollar is only slightly stronger than the US dollar right now. They'd be making an extra $1-2 per bundle. Then you have to think about shipping up there, probably more expensive (more spread-out population).

They can only make a certain number of units by launch date, so they have to predict where to send them so that they can reach a more even distribution of their product.

There are about 350 million people in America.
There are about 35 million people in Canada.
There are probably more demographics they would use to determine where the units will go, but I'd guess they'd distribute around 10% of their North American inventory to Canada.

I remember someone said that HMX delayed the Canadian release because of some mis-print on the packaging (Canada requires the packaging to be both in English and French).

One of my Canadian friends explained why Canadians talk about Americans so much, and (most) Americans don't really even think about Canada that much: "90% of the Canadian population lives within 10 miles of the American border. 10% of the American population lives within 90 miles of the Canadian border."

[foolosophy]

One day, we will remove the border and unite. Together we will be one. It will be like a hippie's dream come true. Hell Europe's banding together economically I say we do too, although America's economy is looking a little frail these days, not to sure I want to be a part of that.

[SteppinRazor]

if cdn dollar is more expensive..and its the same price in canada,

wouldnt EA/hmx just be making free money basically? why would they want people from canada to force themselves to buy it from the states?

even if they delayed some shipments...wouldnt they want to send as much as they could to canada? If they met the cdn market needs..they would be making about 20 bucks free money on each order. that adds up.

really stupid and ******ed market move on EA's part. makes no sense to me at all.

Don't forget: EA is a publicly traded company. That means that if investors hear a whole lotta angry and disapointed American customers says bad things about EA, they'll sell their stock, which hurts EA. On the other hand, EA's primarily American investors don't listen to Canadians, and don't care what we think.

So while they might make a few cents on the dollar for every sale up here because of the exchange rate, they stand to make (or keep) more money by more fully pleasing the US market so their investors stay happy and confident. By keeping all the inventory south of the border, they keep the vocal and valuable US consumers happy at the most important time of the year, and all us Canadians can whine and cry, but believe me, nobody in America, least of all EA and its investors, care.

Thats my take on it. It is only my impresson, I didn't read anything to support that or hear any rumours, it is just the most logical explanation.

[Nilsen31]

if cdn dollar is more expensive..and its the same price in canada,

wouldnt EA/hmx just be making free money basically? why would they want people from canada to force themselves to buy it from the states?

even if they delayed some shipments...wouldnt they want to send as much as they could to canada? If they met the cdn market needs..they would be making about 20 bucks free money on each order. that adds up.

really stupid and ******ed market move on EA's part. makes no sense to me at all.


lol

there are millions of reasons for the move they made.

2 posters in this thread get it.

[SteppinRazor]

"90% of the Canadian population lives within 10 miles of the American border. 10% of the American population lives within 90 miles of the Canadian border."

That stat is complete BS by the way. Just for the record. I normally wouldn't correct, but your numbers are so off I wouldn't want you to say them in public and get made fun of someday.

Canada's 2006 census counted 31,612,897, an increase of 5.4% since 2001. Population growth is from immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About three-quarters of Canada's population lives within 150 kilometres (90 mi) of the US border.

http://www.international.gc.ca/canada-magazine/issue24/01-title-en.asp

[MrNazraq]

That stat is complete BS by the way. Just for the record. I normally wouldn't correct, but your numbers are so off I wouldn't want you to say them in public and get made fun of someday.

Canada's 2006 census counted 31,612,897, an increase of 5.4% since 2001. Population growth is from immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About three-quarters of Canada's population lives within 150 kilometres (90 mi) of the US border.

http://www.international.gc.ca/canada-magazine/issue24/01-title-en.asp

Sorry, dude. I was just quoting my Canadian friend who said that. Didn't bother checking the stats. Made sense to me at the time, though. I know the numbers aren't exact, but it does kinda show some kind of truth.

I just checked the 2000 US Census, and it ends up around 308 million, so still around 10 times Canada's population. But I didn't want to get into a debate of numbers.

But I do have to say, from my own experience, almost all Canadians I have met seem to bring America into a conversation, where very rarely is it that Americans will bring Canada into a conversation. That's the point I was trying to support.

[SteppinRazor]

Oh yes, and I fully agree with you there. Canadians do talk about Americans a whole lot - whether it is the culture and media, crime, politics, or trade - America is a popular topic (although it would go to far to confuse popularity with universial adoration, to say the least). So you are totally in the right there.

And your population size comparrisons were correct too.

The only thing I was pointing out was that the '90% live 10 miles from the border' thing was off by an order of magnitude.

No prob.

[Rock_Starman]

They cared about Canada when they bought Bioware and when it's time to put out their NHL game they'll care.

[LongDarkBlues]

The Canadian Dollar is 102 cents to the US 100 cents today - so the price difference for RockBand is only a little more than $3 - I'm sure the added cost of bilingual special Canadian packaging ate up any extra profits there.

[Frederf]

I hear the Moon dollar is strong. Perhaps HMX should get right on blasting off 1,000 bundles into space. 3...2...1...Profit!

[toomasio]

The Canadian Dollar is 102 cents to the US 100 cents today - so the price difference for RockBand is only a little more than $3 - I'm sure the added cost of bilingual special Canadian packaging ate up any extra profits there.

im just saying that even 3 bucks on each game still adds up. but yeah whatever..im not into marketing.

i hear that the bilingual packaging is a BS excuse. there are alot of people that say they couldnt meet the needs of americans..so they redirected sales from Canada to the US. that seems the most realistic to me.