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The emergence of the iQue company
In fact, you might think that the emergence of a company is not very interesting. What could be so special about it? They made the documents, submitted them to the registering authority, and opened the company, right? Well, almost.
If you know even a little about the iQue company, you probably think that it is a company in China that releases Nintendo consoles under its own brand.
And we will start with the fact that this company is not in China at all, but in... This is what we will talk about next.
Old iQue logo
New iQue logo
Creation of the iQue company
On December 12, 2002, Nintendo and Professor Wei Yen opened the company iQue Ltd.
Professor Wei Yen
If you had opened the homepage of the iQue website at its launch (in 2003), you probably would have, like us, understood nothing. Why are there so many company names mentioned there? Let's look at these names and at the same time at the relationship between these companies and try to figure out what the hell was going on there.
So, there are 3 names:
- iQue Ltd.
- iQue (Suzhou) Ltd.
- iQue (China) Ltd.
Actually, there were 4, the website also mentioned some iQue holding, which was managed by Professor Wei Yen, but I think the word "holding" appeared here due to the phrase "joint venture" and is simply a translation error.
If you open the English Wikipedia page, it says:
What seems to be wrong here? An old joke immediately comes to mind.
— Tell me, is it true that Katz won a million in the lottery?
— True. But not Katz, but Rabinovich. Not in the lottery, but in cards. Not a million, but a hundred rubles. And not won, but lost.
Because the company opened in China was not called iQue Ltd., but iQue (Suzhou) Ltd., it did not have shares of Professor Wei Yen and Nintendo, but had one share of the parent company, and the company called iQue Ltd. was actually opened in the Cayman Islands and most likely dealt with something related to taxes.
Let's try to figure out who, what, and where opened, why, for what, and what was wrong with all of them?
If you are confused, don't worry, we will untangle you now we are also confused.
Okay, let's start to figure it out slowly. First, I suggest looking at the Nintendo financial report.
On page 73 of the Report, you can find an indication that there are two different companies:
1. An affiliated company with the equity method, called iQue Ltd.
2. An affiliated company without the equity method, called iQue (Suzhou) Ltd.
When I wrote the first version of this article, I logically figured out what these companies were and why they were needed. But after that, I learned that on September 25, 2003, Satoru Iwata gave an interview to Bloomberg and said that a new company, iQue Ltd., would be opened. I will attach the article with excerpts from the interview as a separate PDF file.
Satoru said a lot there, but the most interesting part is at the end of the article: Nintendo's China push follows a decision by the company in December last year to team with Wei Yen, a former vice president at Silicon Graphics Inc., in a joint venture called iQue Ltd., based in the Cayman Islands. The joint venture set up an operational company in Suzhou.
So the company iQue Ltd. was indeed opened, and its shareholders were Wei Yen and Nintendo. Moreover, according to rumors circulating in the Chinese segment of the internet, the professor had a controlling stake (51% to 49%).
In addition, we now know that another company was opened in China for operational activities. What is this company?
Remember we encountered the name iQue (Suzhou) Ltd. on page 73 of the Report? Yes! This is the company that was opened in China, and that is why you will not find the name iQue Ltd. in the Chinese equivalent of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
Okay, so far everything seems clear, but there were 3 companies mentioned above, what is the remaining company iQue (China) Ltd.?
If you open the Nintendo report for the next year (2003), you can see that the company iQue (Suzhou) Ltd. disappeared, and in the list of affiliated companies with equity participation, the company iQue (China) Ltd. appeared.
I was able to find out (in the Chinese equivalent of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities) that this is the same company that changed its name. And the company iQue (Suzhou) Ltd. was renamed, apparently from the city level, immediately to the state level.
Update I found that in November 2003, on the iQue company website, there was news where they talked about changing the company name from iQue (Suzhou) Ltd. to iQue (China) Ltd.
What remains unclear is the question of transferring the company to the part where companies with direct equity participation of Nintendo are listed, but I have no other explanation than that Nintendo directly bought some share in iQue (China) Ltd. At the same time, with equal probability, nothing could have changed there.
If we shorten all these names, in the end we can leave two names: iQue Ltd. (Cayman Islands) and iQue (China) Ltd. (China), but in fact, we can even leave only one name, iQue (China) Ltd., since iQue Ltd. does not appear anywhere. That is, when you see a mention of iQue Ltd. on the internet, with 99% probability it refers to iQue (China) Ltd.
Epilogue
Who is Professor Wei Yen, that Nintendo, in cooperation with him, opened a company, gave him a controlling stake in iQue Ltd., and even gave him all the rights to produce Game Boy?
Update. In fact, everything turned out to be much more interesting. Behind the iQue companies was another company that was involved in the development of Chinese consoles, and moreover, it influenced the release of consoles from Nintendo. Read more in the second part: iQue Company. Part 2
