Seeing as China's console ban was issued in 2000, care to enlighten me about consoles before then? Surely a dizzying boatload of Famiclones unknown to western eyes! Did any foreign manufacturer attempt to get approval pre-2000 and was denied, or was 2003's iQue Player the first fully "legal" system?
As far as I'm aware, the most recognized form of the Famicom in mainland China was known as the Xiao Ba Wang (小霸王), produced by the company Subor. It even had Jackie Chan officially endorsing it at one point, and this was in the 90s. But as you point out, I think the iQue was the first legal thing sold with Nintendo's approval. I don't think Subor's Famiclones were ever official which makes it all the more surprising to me they got Jackie Chan's endorsement. Nintendo's copyrights must have meant nothing over there so they did as they pleased, I guess. Gotta wonder if he knew it was technically a stolen product he was doing ads for. Small article if you're interested: http://kotaku.com/the-chinese-gaming-console-with-the-jackie-chan-seal-of-1457960866 It's also a safe bet the majority of famiclone producers weren't bothering to try getting Nintendo's approval since it would have meant licensing fees and other costs that can be easily prevented by just doing it themselves. There were so many clones available anyway that having an officially licensed console wouldn't have meant much in terms of competition, so I doubt too many of these piraters cared to go official.
Check out this thread: http://bbs.a9vg.com/thread-5171571-1-1.html It seems there were consoles officially released in PRC before 2000. There were official Chinese versions of SMS and Mega Drives. The Saturn was officially distributed by Stone Group (四通利方公司) with the cooperation of SEGA, but it seems to be just a standard Japanese console packaged with a Chinese instruction manual and warranty card. Dreamcast was also officially distributed. This article mentions the SEGA/Stone Group Saturn distribution on July 3rd 1997: http://news.17173.com/content/2006-02-18/20060218122046749.shtml
