History of Nintendo in China - iQue Company

China's Strange Bans

In 2000, the Chinese government announced the "Conclusion on the Implementation of Special Management of Electronic Game Business Places" (I think that in a loose translation into Russian, it sounds like this: Conclusion on the Rules for Conducting Business on the Sale of Electronic Games). Article 6 of the Conclusion states: "... except for trading in processing, the production, sale, and import of domestic gaming consoles, their parts, and accessories are prohibited." Which generally meant that it was forbidden to produce gaming consoles for Chinese consumers.

That is, it was a ban on the sale of gaming consoles in the Chinese market.

This ban looks strange for several reasons:

1. Almost all consoles, for the whole world, are produced in China.

2. Despite the fact that the ban existed, everyone who could bypassed it. In China, the PS2 was released under the name "Computer Entertainment System." iQue's products were not even particularly hidden, being released under the name "Home Gaming Console."

3. There was widespread piracy. When Sony released the PS2 in China, they immediately went bankrupt because China was flooded with pirated discs for this console.

Such a strange ban, reminiscent of the senseless struggle of Roskomnadzor with one messenger (although I think the root causes of this struggle are completely different).

But no matter how strange this ban was, no matter how it was enforced, it would still play its role in the history of iQue.

iQue - The Beginning

Entering the Chinese market, Professor Wei Yen faced the main question: which console to start with, as both the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube were released in 2001? Honestly, it was a tough choice: a portable console or a regular one?

But Wei Yen didn't have to think long, and on September 24, 2003, the "iQue Player" console was released in China.

iQue Player

Of course, by its appearance, it's clear that this is... Actually, what is this? By its appearance, it's a joystick, but why a joystick without a console? In fact, it's simple: this is the Nintendo 64. No, it's not a joystick for the Nintendo 64, but the Nintendo 64 itself. I don't know about you, but I immediately had two questions: why release the Nintendo 64 when the GBA and GameCube are available, and where do you insert the cartridges?

In fact, the answers to these questions are interrelated. If you look at this system, it doesn't have a cartridge slot, but it has a built-in flash memory with 64 megabytes:

Photo from Tokyo Game Show 2003

The idea was this: in special stores, terminals were installed where this flash card was inserted, and for just 48 yuan (about 150 rubles at that time), one game was recorded on it.

According to Satoru Iwata, this was due to the following:

1. Low income of the Chinese population.

2. Underdeveloped logistics.

3. Widespread piracy.

And this console really defeated the pirates, as no pirated games were released for it, but due to its own strangeness, it "defeated" itself.

You can see additional photos of the iQue Player + photos of the iQue player patent in this article: iQue Player photos.

A little about the console's oddities:

1. At first, the game terminals were very rare even in Beijing. That is, you could buy the console and wait a couple of months until a terminal appeared somewhere near you.

Update. The rent for these iQue Depots was simply astronomical! 9000 yuan (27,000 rubles) per month + 15,000 yuan (45,000 rubles) deposit, just to place this thing in your store.

2. Since this console was built into a joystick, you couldn't play it with two players. There was a separate device for multiplayer games with an additional joystick for 348 yuan (1050 rubles).

Device for multiplayer games and additional joysticks

3. The Nintendo 64 was released in 1996! That is, 7 years ago (relative to 2003).

4. The Nintendo GameCube, PS2, and Xbox had already been imported into China.

As you can understand, iQue started its activities in China with a resounding failure. Only 20,000 units were sold, and this at a price of 498 yuan (1500 rubles in 2003).

Something had to be done, as such a failure could put an end to any attempts by Nintendo and Wei Yen to make money in China. After all, no matter how high the goals were, a commercial organization must first and foremost make a profit.

So, they had to release something new. As of the end of 2003, Nintendo was releasing the following consoles that were still relevant:

1. Game Boy Advance (released in 2001)

2. GameCube (2001)

3. Game Boy Advance SP (2003)

In addition, Nintendo was fully engaged in the creation of the Nintendo DS. On November 13, 2003, Nintendo announced that they would release a new product in 2004.

And iQue chose... the Game Boy Advance.

iQue GBA

It so happened that the main console Mecca in China was the city of Chengdu. And it was in Chengdu that the press conference dedicated to the release of the iQue GBA took place.

At this conference, held in early June 2004, Wei Yen shared all the details about the console itself, as well as the launch of its production. In addition, he pointed out the high goals of iQue, stating that they wanted not just to profit from sales, but to introduce modern entertainment to the Chinese people.

And so, on June 8, 2004, iQue released the Game Boy Advance.

Chinese gaming magazines wondered what the differences were between this version of the console and the Nintendo ones, as iQue did not disclose this information. It turned out that although iQue had the right to modernize consoles and release them with changes (as was done with the Nintendo 64), the iQue GBA was not affected by this. This console only differs in the logo on the front and a different label on the back.

This is the only version of the Game Boy Advance that was not released under the Nintendo brand, and considering China's bans, this console was positioned as a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) rather than a gaming console.

The release of this console started with two colors: platinum and black. By the way, we were lucky to acquire an iQue GBA from the first batch, released with serial number 13371. You can see it and compare it with a black GBA from the European region here: Photos of iQue Game Boy Advance and Nintendo Game Boy Advance

It cannot be said that the iQue Game Boy Advance was released for a long time, as the iQue GBA SP was released just four months later. However, during this time, the iQue GBA was released in four colors: black, platinum, transparent blue, and a Mario version:

The Mario version remained the only limited edition of the iQue GBA.

To understand the overall situation, we studied the news archive of the magazine "电子游戏软件" (which loosely translates to "Electronic Game Software," hereafter referred to as the Magazine) for 2004. Here's what we found:

1. China, despite the ban on consoles, is not cut off from the world.

2. In China, you could easily buy both the GBA and the GBA SP.

3. The entire year of 2004 was dedicated to the Nintendo DS and its rivalry with the PSP.

That is, the Chinese are quite aware of all the latest releases and use them in their daily lives (moreover, I have come across comments from Chinese people who were extremely surprised to see the iQue version of the GBA). For example, let's look at the advertising page of Magazine No. 132 for 2004:

Here you can find any version of the GBA and even with a large number of accessories. For example, a "naked" GBA cost only 490 yuan (1470 rubles).

Also, in the Magazine (No. 130 for 2004), there was an interesting note about iQue and the choice of the GBA:

The magazine's special correspondent Wang Junsheng wrote that it is very difficult for people to imagine how attractive the GBA would be in those years when the GBA SP had already become popular. Given the complex attitude of Chinese parents towards consoles, the dark screen would become an additional irritant for parents, as they would be afraid for their children's eyesight. At the same time, schoolchildren themselves would find it inconvenient without a backlight.

Since we are talking about the backlight, let's briefly touch on the problems of this console. As you may remember, in the article about the history of the Game Boy Advance, we mentioned that the GBA has two problems: the lack of a backlight and the lack of a battery. These problems were somewhat conditionally related to the console itself, but compared to other products of that time (2001!), the absence of these common features seems strange. But by June 2004 (the release date of the iQue GBA), the Nintendo DS with its excellent screen had already been presented, and even the old GBA SP had a built-in backlight. That is, iQue was again releasing an outdated console model to the market.

Just imagine that at the beginning of the Nintendo GBA's release, its main competitor was the old but still relevant Game Boy Color, and the GBA also had backward compatibility with GBC games. But by releasing the iQue GBA in 2004, its competitors were:

1. Parallel import of GBA - through black channels, Nintendo GBA was imported into China, but since they were sold without VAT, they were cheaper.

2. Nintendo GBA SP and, accordingly, its parallel import GBA SP (with backlight and battery).

3. The upcoming Nintendo DS, which was savored by all magazines and constantly compared to the PSP.

4. Also, the upcoming PSP.

5. There were a lot of different clones of varying quality.

I think you are well aware of what the GBA SP, Nintendo DS, and PSP are, but you might have questions about the GBA clones, so here's an advertisement from the magazine with a clone called Q-Bus:

At the same time, all of this was compounded by rampant mass piracy, which on the one hand promoted the console, but on the other hand did not allow for profits from game sales.

To understand the severity of the problem with parallel imports, it is enough to open any Chinese article about the history of Nintendo in China and read it. There will be entire pages about iQue's heroic struggle with parallel imports.

And in general, parallel imports would not have been a big problem, as the ultimate beneficiary would still be Nintendo. But as we wrote earlier, iQue was owned by Nintendo and Professor Wei Yen, and this situation could not satisfy him.

When we were collecting information about iQue, we imagined huge news headlines about Nintendo's arrival in China and so on, but in reality, it turned out... like this:

We have placed a red arrow just in case, so you can find this most important news on the cover.

It is clear why iQue received such a lukewarm reception, as it looks more like trolling. If you imagine such a situation in our time, as if Nintendo came to Russia and with aplomb announced that they would release the Nintendo 3DS in Russia with Russian games during the era of the Nintendo Switch, it would look strange.

iQue GBA Games

At the start of sales, iQue released only two games in Chinese: Wario Land 4 and Super Mario Advance.

It took pirates only 4 days to release pirated copies of these games. After these two games, from June 2004 to December 31, 2004, iQue released exactly zero games. A commendable productivity.

In total, iQue released 8 games for the GBA, and even then, these were translations of old games, not new ones:

1. Super Mario Advance

2. Wario Land 4

3. Metroid Zero Mission

4. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!

5. Metroid Fusion

6. Yoshi’s Island - Super Mario Advance 3

7. Super Mario World - Super Mario Advance 2

8. F-Zero Maximum Velocity

Actually, considering all of the above, one could talk about a very strange way of doing business by iQue, but the answer was found in the Magazine (No. 142 for 2004):

This article states that Nintendo banned iQue from publishing their games due to piracy, and in addition, Nintendo did not allow iQue to release the GBA SP ahead of schedule. We can only guess who was the initiator of all these, to say the least, strange decisions.