DC Fans in Canada Being Left Behind?

Take a look at this. It looks like more than 150,000 Canadian Sega fans might be left in the cold if this gets worse:

According to a report by MCV Now, Sega of America is having troubles in Canada. The main source of the tribulation dates back to the days of Genesis and Sega CD. It seems that SoA is considered liable by the Canadian government for leaving some back taxes unpaid, including more than a half-million in goods and services taxes (GST) left outstanding.

Because of this, MCV Now claims that Sega cannot sell directly to Canadian retailers and must rely on SJS Distribution and BeamScope, two Canadian distributors who take their own bite out of profits in the bargain. Of the 1.55 million Dreamcasts sold in North America to date, Canada accounts for only ten percent of sales thus far, due to this issue.

Complicating matters is that while, for the moment, Sega is exempt from Canada’s IDSA ruling against Sony and Nintendo that they must issue French-language instruction booklets and localizations to the province of Quebec, that situation could change, especially if Sony and Nintendo decide to kick up a fuss about Sega’s exemption from the ruling.

Due to the extra costs of providing French localizations on top of the money already lost to the Canadian distributors they must move their product through, rumor has it Sega of America may pull out of the province of Quebec to dodge the expense. However, French is the second official language of Canada, and since not all French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, that may not be the answer to Sega’s conundrum. They may have to face a choice between eating the extra costs, or abandoning the Canadian market entirely.

155,0000 is a pretty big number to lose, so we’ll see if this problem gets any worse.