Buy an import iQue from Lik-Sang.com for £65

Many of you will be wondering why you haven’t heard of this console by Nintendo, that’s because it has been designed and marketed with only the Chinese market in mind. China is an emerging game market and as such Nintendo has released the iQue (translated as God’s Toy) to try to establish themselves to Chinese families.

Nintendo have partnered with Dr. Wai Yen former VP of Silicon Graphics, who developed the graphics chip for the N64. Dr. Wai Yen and Nintendo have invested $15 million each in bringing the iQue to market in China. Their strategy is to sell low cost hardware and cheap games (typically $6) to the Chinese public. Although the Chinese are now earning more than they’re used to it’s still quite a drop from western incomes. Hence the low cost solution.

The iQue hardware comes with a 64Mb flashcard and similar architecture to the N64. Games can be downloaded to the flash card and played from the unit. Games can only be downloaded on to the flash card from official depots and the game itself is locked to the specific unit using a digital signature. This is how Nintendo plans to combat the piracy which was the main barrier to entering the Chinese video game marketplace.

According to Dr. Wai Yen, 95% of China’s people are afraid of videogames and feel that their children would be negatively affected by them, this is one of the reasons they have chosen the N64 as the base platform for the iQue. It has a wide catalogue of games available for it, and the titles are “healthy and suitable for Chinese kids”.

The console itself resembles a Dreamcast controller rather than N64. Also the Z-Trigger has been moved to appear underneath the L-shoulder button. Despite the fact that this is a console in itself it’s still only slightly smaller than an Xbox type-S controller. UG

So far these games have been released on iQue with more to follow:

Doctor Mario

Mario Kart 64

Mario 64

Wave Race

Star Fox

F-Zero-X

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time