Backward Compatibility, Regional Restrictions, and System Language on iQue Portable Consoles

iQue Player

Initially, when Wei Yen took the helm of iQue, he had grand plans. It was planned that iQue would not just release Nintendo products, but also heavily modify them, or even release something entirely their own.

The first project of iQue was a completely redesigned Nintendo 64, which was called the iQue Player.

This console did not have the ability to insert cartridges. Games had to be written to a flash cartridge that came with the console.

System Language

The iQue Player only has Chinese language.

Regional Restrictions

Since the console does not have a cartridge slot, you cannot run Nintendo 64 games on the iQue Player.

At the moment, the console has not been fully hacked (because no one needs it). Perhaps in the future, it will be possible to write and run Nintendo 64 games on the iQue flash cartridge. At the moment, this is not possible.

Backward Compatibility

None, since the console does not have a cartridge slot.

iQue Game Boy Advance (SP, Micro)

Many people think that iQue only released the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 version. But that's not true! They released all versions of the GBA:

1. iQue Game Boy Advance;

2. iQue Game Boy Advance SP AGS-001;

3. iQue Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101;

4. iQue Micro.

iQue planned that all these consoles would work on iQue cartridges, which had a good Chinese translation.

Left: Nintendo cartridge, right: iQue cartridge.

However, iQue was only able to release eight games on cartridges. Another eight were ready but were never released.

System Language

Game Boy Advance consoles did not have a system language. The language in the game depended solely on the cartridge, so it was always Chinese when it came to iQue cartridges.

Regional Restrictions

There were no regional restrictions in this family of consoles. All iQue Game Boy Advance consoles could run Nintendo Game Boy Advance cartridges.

Backward Compatibility

But with backward compatibility, things are not so simple. First, there were no Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridges from iQue. However, iQue GBA and both versions of iQue GBA SP can run all old Nintendo cartridges.

The iQue Micro had no backward compatibility and could only run Game Boy Advance cartridges.

iQue DS (DS Lite, DSi)

iQue also did not ignore the Nintendo DS family, releasing three varieties of this console:

1. iQue DS;

2. iQue DS Lite;

3. iQue DSi.

The iQue DSi XL version was never released.

Looking at the top of the iQue DS Lite and iQue DSi, you wouldn't even know that these are consoles from iQue.

Nintendo released three types of cartridges for the Nintendo DS family: Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS enhanced, Nintendo DSi exclusive. In turn, iQue only released iQue DS cartridges.

From left to right: Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS enhanced, Nintendo DSi exclusive, and iQue DS.

iQue DSi games could only be purchased in the iQue DSiWare online store.

System Language

In iQue DS and iQue DS Lite, you can change the system language to English (as in Nintendo DS).

In iQue DSi, there is only Chinese language.

Regional Restrictions

I have never seen such an absurd situation with regional restrictions.

In theory, everything should be as with Nintendo DS. That is, NDS and NDS enhanced cartridges run on any console in the Nintendo DS family, and DSi cartridges only run on DSi. In practice, everything went wrong.

Nintendo DS cartridges run fine on iQue DS, iQue DS Lite, and iQue DSi. That's how it should be.

Nintendo DS enhanced cartridges run on iQue DS and iQue DS Lite but do not run on iQue DSi. But they should!

Nintendo DSi exclusive cartridges do not run on any iQue DS console.

Let's also look at the restrictions when trying to run iQue DS cartridges on Nintendo DS.

iQue DS cartridges do NOT run on Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, although they should! At the same time, they run fine on Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DSi XL.

Here we run, here we don't run, and here we wrap fish. How can you even guess this?!

Backward Compatibility

iQue DS and iQue DS Lite can easily run Game Boy Advance cartridges.

In turn, iQue DSi cannot run them, as it does not have a GBA cartridge slot. However, it can run iQue DS cartridges without any issues.

iQue 3DS XL

Of the entire Nintendo 3DS console family, iQue only released one version - the iQue 3DS XL.

The situation was becoming more and more absurd.

First, no cartridges were released for the iQue 3DS XL. Second, games from the DSiWare online store could not run on the iQue 3DS XL, and no one even planned to open the iQue eShop.

When selling the iQue 3DS XL, two games were pre-installed on its memory card: Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. If you lost the memory card, deleted data from it, or broke it, that's it! You no longer had even these two games.

System Language

The iQue 3DS XL only has Chinese language.

Regional Restrictions

The iQue 3DS XL has strict regional restrictions. As a general rule, no other cartridges can be run.

However, there are some exceptions.

First, cartridges without regional restrictions also run fine on the iQue 3DS XL. For example, Pokemon Ultra Moon runs fine on the iQue 3DS XL.

In addition, the iQue 3DS XL can run Taiwanese cartridges.

But not all of them.

When it comes to Taiwan, Nintendo did some crazy things there. They sold FOUR varieties of cartridges! And these are only the ones officially sold as Taiwanese. And there were also plenty of Japanese cartridges sold there.

1. 3DS cartridges with Japanese language but restricted to Taiwanese consoles (Japanese 3DS but with a different region number);

2. 3DS cartridges with traditional Chinese language and restricted to Taiwanese consoles (real Taiwanese consoles with traditional Chinese language);

3. 3DS cartridges with Taiwanese cover and no language restrictions (all Pokemon cartridges);

4. 3DS cartridges with two languages: traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese.

As a result, the iQue 3DS XL could run cartridges without restrictions and cartridges with two languages (traditional and simplified Chinese).

Cartridges with only traditional Chinese language did not work.

So, those who say that Taiwanese cartridges run on the iQue 3DS XL are slightly mistaken.

Backward Compatibility

The iQue 3DS XL could only run iQue DS and Nintendo DS cartridges. Nintendo DSi enhanced and Nintendo DSi exclusive cartridges do NOT run on this console.