Here in Canada, one of our major pharmaceutical chains has started selling Nintendo Wiis and DSs along with a small selection of accessories and titles (all mainstream and all Nintendo titles).

Why is this significant?  Because it's aimed at women.  Men do not goto pharmacys to shop for anything outside of cold medicine or such, but women obviously do, and the way the entire section is done up is female centric.  Heck, the whole store is.

Nintendo purposely designed Wii to appeal to mothers in particular and while we've seen the Wii is reported to have 1/3 female base, this is the most telling thing I've seen that their decision is actually changing the entire industry and pushing it (or at least Nintendo) into mainstream consciousness and appeal. 

While guys buy the majority of electronics, women due the vast majority of buying, period.  So if this becomes successful for this one chain, others will obviously follow and then other women centric stores may follow suit.  This may cause female ownership percentage to rise. And possibly rise dramatically as this is largely, an untapped market.  Nor do the PS3 or 360 have anything to really offer this market (aside from the very small percentage of women who are gamers already and may play Halo or such).

What do you think? 

I'd guess it was Shoppers Drug Mart, which has been spending all sorts of time trying to become more and more a one stop location. Jean Couteau isn't that big, and London Drugs already sold video games, so that's not new.

It means an expansion of the market and that is good for everyone!

I'm in Canada, and I didn't see this when I went to Shoppers Drug Mart yesterday, which is our biggest chain... which chain do you mean?

Also, I'm a guy and I go to these places pretty often--I buy my gaming magazines if I don't have a subscription at the time, I get snacks, paperbacks, movies, that kind of thing, so I don't understand what you're saying about this point.

However, if you're seeing consoles sold at drugstores, it means a number of positive things for the industry:

-Pharmacies are now recognizing them as a legitimate aid to health, instead of being detrimental

-But the bigger thing is: games are becoming more casual (in a good way!). Just as you can go into a drugstore and buy select books and movies, so can you go into a drugstore and buy select games. Definitely a good thing.

 It's in it's own section with a samll selection of digital cameras and ah, something else, mp3 players I think.  But Wii/Ds were front and centre.  I've only went in one store as I heard the girls at work mention the pharmacy was selling them, and all stores may not be set up identically, however, no it wasn't by the costmetics, it was beside the cashiers and across from grocery items.

The chain is Shoppers Drug Mart. 

Oh, the stores are no where near equal. Over the past 4 years, they completely redesigned store layout, their old style is not "modern" enough, and some stores, I.E. ones in malls, may not have the money or permission to renovate to the degrees neccesary to change look and add new sections.

Compare (In Calgary) The Shoppers by Lord Beaverbrook high school versus the one in Bonavista promenade.

 Shoppers is redesigning a lot of their stores and this new electronics section is a part of that.  So yours may still be the older model and may be renovated later to the new 'look'.

We all shop in pharmacys obviously, but the way the store is designed is to appeal to women, but not to an extent that it'd alienate men.  It's not something you'd be conscious of, but if you know the business side of retail you'd be aware of it.  For example, Black's Cameras recently redesigned their stores to be lighter coloured and more open looking as they determined their market was becoming more female driven.

 Cool. Neat stock tip. It's an interesting development.

EDIT