iQue Ltd.

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iQue Ltd. is a subsidiary of Nintendo. It was established in 2002 as a joint venture between Wei Yen and Nintendo.^[3] It localizes and distributes Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market, under the iQue brand, and the system names themselves would use iQue as a prefix (e.g. iQue Game Boy Advance).

iQue was formerly an independent company with a license from Nintendo, but it became a 100% Nintendo-owned subsidiary in 2013, after Wei Yen left the company.^[4] As of 2017, iQue stopped distributing hardware, although it still offers consumer support for existing products.

iQue developed a special GBA cartridge called NC Card but it was ultimately scrapped. With the ability to connect to the internet, it would allow games to be downloaded onto the cartridge (similar to the iQue Player), as well as online multiplayer. Games that were planned to use online multiplayer include Advance Wars, the Pokémon series of games, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, as well as some Chinese chess games and card games developed in-house specifically for the NC Card which were never released.

History

iQue Ltd. was founded with a registered capital of $30m in December 2002 and established its headquarter in Suzhou, China in May 2003. Investment from both parties (Nintendo and Wei Yen) include capital, technology, patents, software copyright and other intellectual properties.^[3] According to some former employees, iQue stayed independent in its financial and marketing in the first few years,^[5] and was a cooperation partner of Nintendo instead of a subordinate agency.^[6] Prior to iQue, Nintendo had introduced the Game Boy Advance console to China via a Hong Kongese sales agent named Mani (万信)^[7], but faced several challenges such as the rampant piracy among Chinese game retailers and the government's ban on video game consoles, which led to the partnership with Wei Yen to solve these issues via localization. (Mani remained as Nintendo's agent in Hong Kong and Taiwan up until the DS era.)^[8]

On November 17, 2003, the highly-localized iQue Player (神游机), based on Nintendo 64 but with anti-piracy mechanisms, was released. The iQue Player was unique that all the components were inside the controller and that it loaded games from a single, 64MB flash memory card with digital signatures instead of tradeable cartridges. Games for the console must be digitally purchased and written to the flash memory cards, at first through "iQue Depots" (神游加油站) – interactive kiosks in big cities where the player could bring their flash memory cards and iQue Tickets (神游票) to download, buy, store, retrieve games – and since October 2004 through an online service called iQue@Home (神游在线), which provided the same services to players at home via client software and the Internet. There were also multiplayer accessories (共游��� and 共游机) for family gaming. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the design has to do with the low income, undeveloped logistics, and rampant piracy in mainland China.^[9] 14 games were released.^[10] iQue Players came with five games pre-installed, although four of them are time-limited demos, after which the full version had to be bought to continue playing. Of these five games, Dr. Mario 64 was the only full game included. On the iQue Player menu, Dr. Mario 64 and purchased games are indicated with a red square whilst timed demo games are indicated by a yellow square.

The iQue Player did not become a commercial success as expected, having only sold 8,000 to 12,000 units instead of the 1,000,000-unit goal Wei Yen claimed internally. Nor had the promise that "hundreds of games will be launched soon", printed on the back side of the packaging box, been fulfilled due to low speed of government approval (although the released titles had been praised for good localization).^[11] The "神游盒子" console, which was going to be a localized version of the Nintendo GameCube, was also canceled.^[12]

On June 8, 2004, the iQue Game Boy Advance (小神游^[13]) was released. Unlike the iQue Player, it had no regional lockout or anti-piracy mechanism, featuring interoperability with Nintendo's version of the Game Boy Advance. Four months later, the similar iQue GBA SP was released, followed by several new designs and official contests.^[14] The iQue GBA series sold well, reaching 200,000 units in 2005. At the same time, there were efforts to develop edutainment software, but failed. A total of 8 games were released during the console's lifespan.^[10]

On July 23, 2005, the iQue DS was released. It can load iQue DS, Nintendo DS as well as GBA games, but iQue DS games could not be played on the Nintendo DS, which was otherwise region free. The deluxe version sold via large markets had Polarium and WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!. The iQue DS Lite released in the June of 2006 followed by supporting flashcarts, and the DS series sold well, reaching 300,000+ units. Only 6 games were ever released.^[10]

In 2007, iQue's version of Wii was approved and planned for sale in 2008, but although it did not get the government's approval. Several games were already localized or partially localized, although some of them were converted into Traditional Chinese and released in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Even since it became a full Nintendo subsidiary, iQue released the iQue 3DS XL in 2012, with two games pre-installed, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. No other titles have been released by iQue since. However, titles from Nintendo Hong Kong and Nintendo Taiwan that featured a Simplified Chinese interface could be played on iQue 3DS XL, including Mario Tennis Open, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and Paper Mario: Sticker Star. iQue discontinued all services in mainland China in 2016, but remained doing Simplified Chinese localization for Nintendo Hong Kong.

iQue discontinued all services in mainland China in 2016, but remained doing Simplified Chinese localization for Nintendo Hong Kong.

Localized consoles

• iQue Player – Nintendo 64 (released November 17, 2003)
• iQue Game Boy Advance – Game Boy Advance (released June 8, 2004^[15])
• iQue Game Boy Advance SP – Game Boy Advance SP
• iQue Game Boy Micro – Game Boy Micro
• iQue DS – Nintendo DS (released July 23, 2005), also had a deluxe version sold via large markets with Polarium and WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!.^[16]
• iQue DS Lite – Nintendo DS Lite (released June 2006)
• iQue DSi – Nintendo DSi (released 2009)
• iQue 3DS XL – Nintendo 3DS XL

Released games

iQue Player

iQue Game Boy Advance

iQue DS

iQue DSi (DSiWare)

To avoid piracy, Nintendogs wasn't released as a DS cartridge, but was preinstalled on the console as DSiWare instead. Unlike versions released in other countries, the Chinese version doesn't have variations featuring different dog breeds.

iQue 3DS

The iQue 3DS XL has no eShop, and no physical games were ever released for the console. The above 2 games were pre-installed on the console.

Unreleased games

iQue Player

iQue Game Boy Advance

Famicom Mini Collection includes the following games:

• Mario Brothers
• Super Mario Bros.
• Clu Clu Land
• Ballon Fight [sic]
• Wrecking Crew
• Metroid
• Dr.Mario
• Donkey Kong
• Excite Bike
• Ice Climber
• Super Mario Bros. 2

Wii

• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Wii Sports
• Wii Play
• Mario Kart Wii
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

External links

• Mario Kart Wii Region IDs
• Scrapped Mario Kart Wii Chinese Localization Offers Users “Healthy Gaming Advice”
• AMA-style thread of former iQue employee "hide"
• Chinese Article about iQue's history (Part 1)
• Chinese Article about iQue's history (Part 2)
• iQue localization info spreadsheet

References