The History of Nintendo in China - the iQue Company
Part 5. Company Problems and iQue Wii

iQue Company Problems

iQue had problems with all these sources of income. Console sales were limited by parallel (gray) imports. After all, you could find both iQue products and Nintendo products on the shelves. You might find this strange, aren't they the same consoles? But it's not that simple. The iQue company was 51% owned by Wei Yen, which means sales of Nintendo consoles did not bring him any profit. Interestingly, in 80% of cases, such profits did not even go to Nintendo (according to iQue employees). After all, as a rule, refurbished consoles were sold as new in this way.

Profit from cartridges was generally insignificant, as they were hacked instantly, and pirated copies went on sale the next day. And this is perhaps the biggest moral problem for the iQue company.

It's worth stopping here in more detail.

Despite the fact that the development of new consoles was handled by the BroadOn team, iQue was not just a marketing company that only distributed consoles.

They had a strong team of programmers. For example, the game development department was headed by the former executive director of Ubisoft Shanghai, Wen Yingmin. They were engaged in localization and software development. There was a group responsible for hardware and systems development, headed by Chen Yongzhi. This group was engaged in modifying Nintendo consoles, which were then released under the iQue brand. They had their own accountants, lawyers, marketers, and other specialists.

iQue company office.

That is, the iQue company had a good team that could even release their own games, but they, with rare exceptions, were only engaged in localization. At the same time, there were cases when employees complained that they could sit for 2 months without work. And why did this happen?

The main problem at that time was that in China, the release of games was strictly formalized. To sell a game, you had to obtain a license. On average, it took about three months to approve one game. Moreover, officials could present a list of complaints about the game and demand that the shortcomings be corrected. After which they needed one to two months for re-approval.

In 2004, iQue applied for the approval of three games: Paper Mario, Sin and Punishment, and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (all games were intended for the iQue Player).

Sin and Punishment.

iQue was most concerned about the game Sin and Punishment. Even from the title ("Sin and Punishment"), it was clear that the game was not very child-friendly. And iQue built its image as "All Ages," meaning the company's products should be accessible to all players.

And what do you think, which game could not pass censorship? That's right, Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The other two games were released.

To understand the depth of censorship, just imagine that iQue had to remove the mustache of an officer from the game Advance Wars. This happened because he very much resembled a Japanese officer. And the Japanese did terrible things on Chinese territory. Just remember the Nanjing Massacre.

iQue Advance Wars.

But it was not only state regulation that hindered iQue. Pirates and flash cartridges caused no less headache. I can't imagine the despair of the iQue company when they, together with authorized dealers in Nanjing, tried to organize a boycott of flash cartridges. Then warning letters were sent to sites where pirated ROM images of games could be downloaded. And in the end, iQue wrote an open letter calling on gamers to buy only genuine games.

And the third problem was that the Japanese, seeing how pirates copied games in one day, simply stopped giving licenses for game localization. Moreover, such negotiations could drag on so long that iQue programmers began localizing games using the same tools as various pirate-fan groups.

One former iQue employee said that once, after negotiations, they received a game written in assembly language, and they suspected that the game developers did this on purpose.

Interestingly, in early 2019, a lot from an unknown person appeared on Taobao, where he offered to buy 12 unreleased but localized games from the iQue company.

Unreleased iQue games.

Third-party game developers faced the same problem. How would they make a profit if their games were instantly hacked? For example, Game Freak, the developer of Pokémon games, flatly refused to cooperate with iQue.

And here iQue faced a dilemma. What to do? Sell consoles and forget about games, let the pirates rake in all the profits from them? Or not sell consoles. But then it's unclear what to do next.

The solution was on the surface. After all, iQue had a wonderful store for the iQue Player console - iQue@Home.

iQue@Home

Even in the very first article "The History of Nintendo in China - the iQue Company", I talked about the strange iQue Depot device.

iQue Depot.

This thing was intended for purchasing games and recording them onto the official flash cartridge for the iQue Player. Of course, this idea did not take off, primarily due to the greed of iQue itself. The store where such a terminal was installed had to pay 9,000 yuan per month for rent and a 15,000 yuan deposit for the device itself. With the price of one game being 48 yuan, such a thing would never pay off. Especially considering that the iQue Player console was sold in quantities of about 12,000 units.

But the iQue Player's flash cartridge had the ability to connect to a computer (via USB). iQue developed the iQue@Home program, which allowed users to purchase and record games from a computer directly to the flash cartridge.

Here's what purchasing games in the iQue@Home program looked like:

This store operated until October 31, 2016. But its main problem was that it was supposed to become something bigger than it actually was.

Wei Yen wanted to extend this platform to all consoles. Then it would be possible to sell games, as pirates could not hack this platform. It took pirates 15 years to hack the iQue Player. However, I think it took so long to hack the console simply because no one needed it. But in any case, if it had been possible to delay piracy for two or three years, it would have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue.

Then the question arises, well, the iQue Player's flash cartridge had the ability to connect to a computer. What about the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS? The answer is very simple, iQue began developing a flash cartridge for these consoles as well. I'm talking about the iQue Netcard project.

iQue Netcard

In 2004, iQue began developing the NetCard. This project involved a team from BroadOn and Chen Yongzhi's team.

The iQue NetCard resembled a regular, slightly enlarged Game Boy Advance cartridge. Here's what it looked like:

iQue Netcard.

And here's what it looked like inside:

It had two ARM7TDMI processors and 128 MB of NAND memory. It had two connectors: a 3.5 mm jack and a microUSB (1.1). This cartridge could emulate any type of save, meaning ROM images of games did not need to be modified. Plus, it had encryption, and the second processor was solely responsible for anti-piracy protection.

Here's what the cartridge menu looked like:

And here's what the computer program looked like:

iQue Netcard software

Moreover, this cartridge not only allowed you to record games from the internet but also to play online!

For example, a card game called Winner, Sheng Ji was developed.

And for this whole idea, the company iQue Digital Co. Ltd. was opened with an authorized capital of 10 million yuan.

The saddest thing here is that this project was closed. For some reason, the cartridge never went on sale.

Some say it worked terribly. For example, when playing Mario Kart online, there were terrible lags. Others doubted the viability of this idea altogether.

But one thing is certain: iQue@Home and iQue NetCard did not disappear without a trace. The concept implemented in them smoothly transitioned into the Nintendo Wii. After all, it was on the Wii that Nintendo first introduced an online store.

And since we're talking about the Nintendo Wii, it's time to move on to the iQue Wii and what happened to this console.

iQue Wii

In the previous article, I stopped at the release of the iQue DS Lite, which took place on June 25, 2006. If you look at Nintendo, they were actively developing the Nintendo Wii console, and on November 19, 2006, the console was released in America.

By the way, many patents for the Wii were registered under Professor Wei Yen and his company Ailive Inc. And since Wei Yen was involved in the creation of the Nintendo Wii, it seemed logical to release this console in China.

Such work was indeed underway. Moreover, iQue employees repeatedly stated that they would definitely release the iQue Wii.

Given that the launch of the iQue Micro and iQue DS Lite in China was synchronized with the global launch, it could be assumed that the iQue Wii would soon be released. However, something went wrong.

Only in December 2007 did the iQue Wii receive the CCC (China Compulsory Certificate). At that time, iQue decided to time the release of the iQue Wii to coincide with the 2008 Olympics, which were to be held in Beijing. They obtained a license for the game Mario & Sonic and began translating about 10 more games into Chinese.

In early 2008, an interesting stand appeared in Qingdao.

As iQue employees later explained, this was their way of testing the market. At the same time, the stand used a Japanese Wii.

But despite the use of the Japanese Wii, it is known for sure that the localization of the iQue Wii was fully completed.

The Olympics had already started, but there was no news about the iQue Wii.

And now it's time to return to the article: "The History of Nintendo in China - the iQue Company". In it, I wrote that since 2000, the sale of consoles has been banned in China. Of course, iQue, as well as other players in the market, such as Sony, tried to find ways around this. For example, when obtaining the CCC certificate for the iQue Wii, it was registered as the "iQue Multimedia Interactive Player," without indicating that it was a gaming console. But sooner or later, such games with the state end not in your favor. This is what happened here.

In March 2008, a reform took place in China, according to which the State Council of the People's Republic of China, at the first session of the 11th National People's Congress, announced the creation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which would replace the Ministry of Information Technology. The new ministry also included: the Commission for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, the State Council Informatization Office, and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

It was after this that the regulation of the entire console industry became stricter. But the main problem was not even this. A high-ranking official, who, according to rumors, was well known to Wei Yen, lost his position.

In the end, the iQue Wii console was never released. And the irony of fate was the parallel release of the Vii console - a cheap Chinese clone of the Wii.

Cheap Chinese clone - Vii.

Epilogue

Wei Yen could not withstand this and simply left iQue, selling his share to Nintendo. Other employees followed him.

After leaving iQue, Professor Wei Yen continued to collaborate with Nintendo. The company BroadOn was renamed iGware and began working on cloud technologies for Nintendo, and was later sold to Acer for $320 million. This is how Wei Yen's path diverged from iQue.

But the story of iQue does not end here.