During National StreetPass Weekend, 3DS owners can visit a Nintendo Zone location -- you can find one near you using Nintendo's website -- to StreetPass not with people who have visited that same location, but Nintendo Zones throughout the United States and Canada. In other words, someone on the East Coast can StreetPass with someone from the West Coast, all while remaining 3,000 miles away from each other.
StreetPassing is nowhere near as popular in the U.S. and Canada -- or anyone else in the world -- as it is in Japan, where it's nothing short of a sensation. Outside of Japanese retailers like Yodobashi Camera, seen above, huge groups of people come together in order to StreetPass. These groups originally began to form inside the store in order to exchange Dragon Quest IX data, but after they became too large, store management redirected them outside to areas now designated for StreetPassing.
As it exists today, StreetPass behavior is simply different in North America than it is in Japan. "We've found here in North America that there's really been StreetPass activity in, prior to this summer, two main areas," Nintendo director of product marketing Bill Trinen told IGN. "One is the real grassroots, local StreetPass groups that I think formed shortly after the launch of the 3DS. And we've seen those pop up in a lot of cities, from New York to Chicago to Salt Lake City, or wherever. And they've really been user-run groups that are all about bringing people together to experience StreetPass, and they've been active for a really long time and they've done a really great job of spreading the StreetPass word."
The other big source of StreetPassing in North America has been at events like E3, PAX, and Comic-Con that physically bring large numbers of 3DS owners together.
"StreetPass here has really been more sort of event-focused, where you're getting a lot of people at one time rather than sort of an ongoing, regular-basis type of a thing for a lot of people," Trinen explained. Compare that with Japan, where StreetPasses tend to be more frequent because of the way people live and travel. "In Japan, what it is, it's ease. It's really easy to do, just because of the way that transportation is set up there; it's very easy to get around some place very quickly."
"We know certainly that we're not seeing as much StreetPass natively here in North America as in Japan, where it's just a much denser population," said Trinen. "That's part of the reason we felt like StreetPass so far has really been kind of the realm of very close-knit community. But, at the same time, the people that are enjoying StreetPass seem to get a lot of enjoyment out of it."
But does that mean there's no chance for StreetPass to achieve Japan-levels of popularity in North America or for us to ever see scenes like those in the Akihabara district of Tokyo? Asked whether that's even a goal for Nintendo in North America, Trinen said, "Absolutely. In fact, we've had at times different events that we've done through places like Best Buy or GameStop, and, more specifically, not on 3DS but back on the original DS with Dragon Quest IX, we did a series of regular Dragon Quest IX StreetPass events in support of that game. And so there's activity we've done ourselves, and of course we would also encourage stores like GameStop and Best Buy to kind of look at the opportunity that's there."
Aware of the disparity in popularity, Nintendo is taking steps like National StreetPass Week to help bolster StreetPass usage in North America. Knowing what's led to such success in Japan, Trinen said, "Actually that's partly why what we've done with Nintendo Zone and the StreetPass Relay Points is that, rather than try to ask people to create a new habit or a new custom for themselves to be able to experience this, we've really tried to find ways to leverage what types of activity they're already doing, and make it a little bit easier for them to just bring the 3DS along with them when they're going out and about."It's exactly that reason that this weekend was chosen for the National StreetPass Weekend: With so many people going to be out holiday shopping (or checking out the newest Hobbit movie), it's an opportune time to allow people to do something new by potentially StreetPassing with people from around the country.
In the future, it's possible another event like this could take place that lets 3DS owners StreetPass with those from other countries. "We'll take a look and see how it goes and how many people participate, but we're definitely thinking about, long-term, how we might be able to do additional future National StreetPass days or potentially worldwide StreetPass days where you'd be able to connect with people from other countries as well."
Beyond that, Nintendo is thinking about ways to simply encourage 3DS owners to bring their system with them when leaving the house through events like StreetPass scavenger hunts and by offering new content at Nintendo Zone locations. Nintendo is "looking for more creative content that we can use to distribute at Nintendo Zones. The feeling is that, if we're able to offer people content at Nintendo Zones that they can go and download and then experience StreetPass while they're there, that's going to be the best way to get people excited about it and doing it on a regular basis." Chris Pereira is a freelance writer who spends his spare time agonizing over the final seasons of The X-Files. Check out what he's saying on Twitter and follow him on IGN.