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iQue, Ltd.

Native name	神游科技
Romanized name	Shényóu Kējì
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	6 December 2002; 23 years ago (2002-12-06)[1]
Founder	Nintendo Wei Yen
Headquarters	Suzhou, China[2]
Key people	Wei Yen (CEO)
Services	Softwaretranslation andlocalization Game development
Parent	Nintendo (2013–present)
Website	www.ique.com

iQue, Ltd. (simplified Chinese:神游科技;traditional Chinese:神遊科技;pinyin:Shényóu Kējì) is a Chinesevideo game localization and development company located inSuzhou. It was founded in 2002 as ajoint venture between Taiwanese-American engineerWei Yen andNintendo to manufacture and distribute Nintendo hardware and software for mainland China.

iQue released theiQue Player in 2003 and went on to distribute several Nintendo handheld systems under the iQue brand. By 2013, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo and later shifted its focus away from hardware to localization, technical support, and internal development work.

Its Chinese name, Shényóu, is adouble entendre meaning "to make a mental journey".

Nintendo established iQue in December 2002 as a joint venture with Wei Yen, a veteran of earlier Nintendo hardware collaborations. Yen had previously served as senior vice president atSilicon Graphics, where he contributed to Project Reality, the hardware project that became the Nintendo 64. After leaving SGI, Yen founded BroadOn, which developed thecryptographic security system used in the iQue Player to deter piracy.^[3]

The company introduced its first product, the iQue Player, in 2003. The system adopted ahandheld TV game format in part to comply with a 2000Ministry of Culture ban on the sale of traditional home video game consoles.^[4] In the following years, iQue distributed official Nintendo products for the mainland Chinese market, focusing primarily on handheld systems, which were not subject to the same ban. While Nintendo and iQue initially planned to release theWii across mainland China, these plans were ultimately scaled back, and the iQue Player was the company's only home console released in China.

By 2013, iQue became awholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo.^[5] During the early 2010s, iQue contributed to emulator development for Nintendo'sVirtual Console services, includingNES andGame Boy emulation onNintendo 3DS and Nintendo 64 emulation onWii U. The company later supported development of the Nintendo 64 emulator used forNintendo Switch Online.^[6]

Starting from 2017, Nintendo wound down distribution of older hardware under the iQue brand. Nintendo partnered withTencent to introduce theNintendo Switch in mainland China in 2019.^[7] iQue shifted to providing customer support for legacy products and began localizing Nintendo titles into simplified Chinese, while Nintendo Hong Kong handled traditional Chinese.^[8][9]

In 2019, iQue began hiring programmers and developers, signaling a broader transition toward internal development support forNintendo EPD.^[10]

The iQue Player is a handheld TV game variant of theNintendo 64. It was designed to bypass China's ban on home consoles at the time and to combat game piracy in the market. A total of 14 games were released for the console.^{[citation needed]}

An iQue variant of theGame Boy Advance was released on 8 June 2004.^{[citation needed]} Its revisions were also released under the iQue brand; theGame Boy Advance SP was released in October 2004,^[11] and theGame Boy Micro was released in October 2005.^[11]

Eight games were released for the Game Boy Advance.^[12][13] Twelve more games were planned, but cancelled due to high piracy of the system.^{[citation needed]}

The iQue DS is a variant of theNintendo DS. It was released on 23 July 2005. Six games were released for the console.^[13] Unlike in other regions, iQue DS games areregion locked, preventing them from being played on DS systems from other regions.^[16] Some DS revisions were released under the iQue brand; theNintendo DS Lite was released on 26 June 2006,^[11] and theNintendo DSi was released in December 2009.^[17] The latter was bundled withNintendogs and a gift card with 1,000DSiWare points, allowing users to download software.^{[citation needed]}

The iQue 3DS XL is a variant of theNintendo 3DS XL. It was the only version of the 3DS offered by iQue. Unlike the Nintendo 3DS XL from other regions, the iQue 3DS XL cannot access theNintendo eShop, transfer save data between systems, or play DSiWare.^{[citation needed]} Only two games were released for the console, both of which were pre-installed on every console made. No physical game cards were ever made.

Due to its regional lockout, the iQue 3DS XL is only compatible with games that were localized in simplified Chinese. As a result, an additional 14 games can be played on the console.

• Official website(in Chinese)

• IQue
• Companies based in Suzhou
• Video game companies established in 2002
• Chinese companies established in 2002
• Manufacturing companies of China
• First-party video game developers
• Nintendo divisions and subsidiaries
• Privately held companies of China
• Video game companies of China
• Video game development companies
• Chinese brands
• Chinese subsidiaries of foreign companies

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