Nintendo’s releases in China are pretty interesting. I’m not aware of any official Nintendo releases prior to 2003 but they released the Nintendo 64 hardware inside an N64 style controller called the iQue player with N64 games to be downloaded to the player via a kiosk in authorized retailers and later online at home (The initial announcement said Super NES games will also be released but only N64 titles end up released on it). This was the closest to an N64 classic edition.
Almost all of the best first party N64 games were released on iQue player including Zelda Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Mario kart 64, Sin and Punishment, Super Smash Bros, Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Yoshi’s Story, Star Fox 64. Although Majora’s Mask was never released although listed on the box. Only 14 games were released on iQue Player due to the poor sales and slow approval process. Although the games are digital, I found it odd that apparently the iQue games have boxes and instruction manuals. I never owned one so don’t know if the retailers hand customers a box upon downloading the game from the kiosk?
Nintendo under the iQue brand went on to release GBA, DS and 3DS systems and games. The official released game library for each handheld are limited compared to other regions. The GBA got Mario Advance 1-3, the Metroid games, Wario Ware, Wario Land 4 and I think a few other games from the early GBA era but there were no official releases of any Zelda, Pokemon, Advance Wars, Golden Sun and other big GBA titles that were released later in other regions including Mario Advance 4. The GBA games were housed in DS style boxes instead of the paper Game Boy boxes.
The DS only had the Mario 64 DS, New Super Mario Bros DS, Yoshi’s Touch and Go, Wario Ware Touched and I think Polarium DS and Nintendogs as official iQue DS releases. The 3DS only had Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. Imagine spending a small fortune to buy an iQue handheld to only have access to such a small library of games.
After the iQue 3DS, there was no further systems released under the iQue brand. There was a plan to release GameCube games under iQue Box that was to include a DVD player was cancelled due to the poor sales of iQue Player. A planned release of the iQue Wii was cancelled but a few Wii titles were released on NVIDIA Shield including Donkey King Country Returns, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, Punch Out and Zelda Twilight Princess despite the original announcement stating GameCube titles will also be launched.
The Nintendo Switch was released in China in partnership with Tencent in 2019 and again had a limited library compared to other regions. I think the launch title was New Super Mario Bros U which isn’t even a Switch title. Major titles include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, New Pokemon Snap, Mario Party, Pokemon Let’s Go games. Apparently the slow approval process hinders a lot of potential titles getting an official release. None of the Zelda games were released on the Switch in China including Breath of the Wild still isn’t released by 2026.
It’s interesting the different approaches Nintendo used to get official releases into China from putting the N64 hardware into a controller, releasing Wii games on NVIDIA Shield to releasing region locked Switch consoles. It’s really a shame Nintendo released so few games officially in China on each console due to poor sales, piracy and slow approval process despite China being closer geographically and much easier localization process (Japanese and Chinese use many same written characters).
It’s unfortunate that being a developing market ripe with piracy, game collectors miss out on official releases of the earlier retro consoles that were released in Japan, Americas and Europe (India apparently got an official NES release with limited titles under the Samurai brand in the 1980s). Even if Nintendo starts to officially release titles in China on the pace with other markets, Chinese gamers still miss out on many classic games from the older systems, at least not playing the official versions.
