The Nintendo Console That Fought Chinese Piracy, And Lost

If you’re a fan of consumer tech and gadgets, you’ve probably already come to know China as that magical place where patents practically don’t exist, and counterfeit electronics are the rule of the day. From sprawling urban marketplaces in Hong Kong to fake Apple stores in Kunming, your chances of getting the genuine article from a genuine retailer there are significantly diminished compared to the rest of the world. That’s why Nintendo, unbeknownst to a large majority of their hardcore fans, went into the Chinese market in 2003 with a new console aimed at combating piracy.

Spoiler: It didn’t work out too well.

In order to navigate the peculiarities of Chinese law, Nintendo teamed up with a Chinese entrepreneur named Wei Yen, who had previously helped build the graphics chip inside the Nintendo 64. The resulting console was called the iQue Player, and it didn’t really do anything new. In fact, all of its 14 titles (you read that right) were re-releases of previous games.

Receiving almost no fanfare from Nintendo, the system’s main objective was not to be a worldwide success, but to allow Nintendo entrance to the Chinese market in an attempt to thwart the legions of fakers. Hell, the console was even made to look like one of those mall kiosk TV consoles with its cheap, ‘all-in-one’ controller design.

Some interesting factoids, gathered by the videogame historians at Racketboy:

• The iQue Player allows owners to purchase and download games to a flash card, which is then inserted into the controller to install the game. The controller is the console and plugs directly into the TV, similar to a plug-and-play device.
• The plug-n-play format was chosen by Nintendo because it circumvents a Chinese law imposed in 2000 by the Ministry of Culture which bans the sale of video game consoles. The ban is not strictly enforced, and both Microsoft and Sony have released consoles there since the iQue Player's release.
• According to Lik-Sang.com, Nintendo originally had plans to release the console in other markets, but these appear to have been scrapped in favor of the Virtual Console.

Nintendo’s peculiar infiltration of China was met with minimal success, and quickly vanished from the shelves and memories of gamers in China. Outside of the Peoples Republic, the console is only occasionally seen as an eBay auction, with predictably exorbitant prices. I suppose in the end, you can’t fake a faker.

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