Maybe a step in the right direction: iQue Player - Monitoring Game access

Hi Everyone,

As some of you may know, I have purchased an iQue Player with 4 game cards, manuals, etc for quite cheap since being in China. It was about $25ish dollars.

Before I was an IT and Middle school teacher, I went to school fo Computer Science and Networking. So, naturally, I'm intriguied by Networkd Communications. Not to mention, I've been huge into portabilizing since around 2006ish. (Yay, Portables of Doom and Benheck).

Now, I'm not making this post to boast, so let's get to the point.

I've read online that games for the iQue (when purchsed at home) are stored either on iQue servers or in the 250(?)mb download/application itself (and that the download code is just authenticated by the iQue server, and the game is unlocked in the app. This means the game is stored in the application files itself, rather than being pushed by the server downstream to the pc). The latter, means in theory, the game could be unlocked by spoofing the authentication server somehow, or so I believe.

Could someone shed some light on this?

I plan on doing 2 things.

1) Creating a mega thread for the iQue and dumping my manual scans and such there.
2) I plan on running some network activity tools, and seeing what type of information is being pushed to my pc, and from where.

I'll ofcourse post my findings.

 

Coolies
I have always wanted an ique, whats the going rate for one over there [usd]?

Maybe connect the ique and the Home SW and download a game then try and catch the files (sure there is some software to do this). or try to see if there is a temp folder for the app??

http://retroactive.be/ique/

 

Thanks for the link! I totally forgot that Marshallh documented some of this stuff. Him and I go way back.

Cost of a brand new iQue Player here is 128rmb - $20 dollars. Each game is 45rmb - $8. I was lucky to get a bunch of games for real cheap.

Assembler: I'm not too sure what you mean. Care to elaborate? I know the game selection is small, but if I could make any sort of progress on getting games for free, etc on it, I'm sure it'd be a good thing. That, and hacking the flashcard. I know each game is digitally signed to the card, but there must be a way to spoof the signature or the card ID.

 

WHATT!?? ONLY $20?? Do you want to get me one lol

 

I'm not sure the rules regarding buy requests outside of the proper forum, but if it's okay with the mods, send me a PM.

I'm in China, near Hong Kong. Not sure how much shipping would be.

 

So, I got my iQue, 4 game cards, and 4 manuals today. I plan on dumping the manuals online, as then only manual dump I see is LoZ.

Also I've noticed, the game cards (look like credit cards, used to download games with the code on them), are plastic. A lot of posts online state that they are paper. (Such as the Racketboy guide: http://www.racketboy.com/retro/nintendo/nintendo-ique-player-a-beginners-guide)

I'll make sure I state that in my mega thread.

 

Is it possible to get the iQue player to output RGB?

 

Do you mean SCART or Component (Red, Green, Blue)?

I know it can output s-video with a easy modification. Apparently most mods that work on the n64 will work on this.

 

I mean RGB. Component isn't RGB; it's simply the color of the cables. Although RGB technically is a type of component video, when people say "component", they usually mean YPbPr, which is not the same as RGB. And yes, SCART uses RGB, though there are other cables and formats that also use RGB. I tried to say that in a non-condescending way, how did I do?

When you say that most mods that work on the N64 work on the iQue Player, that's a little confusing - because not all mods work on all versions of the N64. For example, the RGB mod can only be done on NTSC consoles, and only on certain revisions of the console.

 

I was simply asking, because even when I worked a little in the TV repair business, people called Component "RGB".

About the mods, I was just echoing what I've seen online. I don't think theres an RGB mod though, even though the iQue is NTSC (according to racketboy... which would be weird, as China uses PAL).

The best I've seen is an S-Video mod.

 

Nice. Best of luck, I'll be watching this thread

Going at it "from the other end", have the roms been dumped? I know I don't have them, but that doesn't mean much. According to CN the carts are just some flash on a PCB (they even provide software to read them), so that part shouldn't be too complicated. I'm wondering how the roms included in the iQue@Home-Complete package compare to what ends up in flash (same file, decrypted on the fly on the machine; encrypted differently, e.g. with a per-device key; plaintext; other...?). (Reasoning: Maybe it'd be easier - if not as convenient - to not use that client at all and write directly to the carts.) (edit: for the record: no dice, people have looked into that and pretty much everything on that cart seems heavily encrypted. pity.)

Oh and for those thinking to buy one, I just noticed sth on http://retroactive.be/ique/:

...so better make sure not to get a NOS one.

 

I haven't seen any of the old, non-updatable ones around. There's an easy way to tell which one you are buying

If it has a red sticker with game names, then it's the old model.

if it has a blue-ish purple grey sticker with games and the iQue@Home logo, then it's the new one.

The new one is updatable online.

 

Update:

From sniffing and monitoring (in maybe some places I shouldn't have been), I've come with up with some theories.

The iQue "Fugue Online/iQue@Home" application is only 2mb in size. Upon installing, it asks if I want to install a "game cache", which is 200+mb.
Upon investigating what this game cache is, I have found out that it's a bunch of folders, that each contain a file (of unknown type). The files inside the cache folders are named the same as the "game codes" of each game, that are on my game manuals.

So in a theoretical nutshell, this game cache includes the actual iQue games themselves.

My theory is:

The iQue Server (albeit 1kb in size, as it appears to be a pointer) is used for code card authentication, data encryption and content delivery. Each copy of the game distributed has a unique ID.

If you don't install the game cache, the app pushes the encrypted files/games from the server to the iQue. If you do install the game cache, the app appears to talk to the server, and may request a "wrapper" (the encryption) for the game files. It gets the wrapper, binds it to the game (unknown filetype) and pushes it onto the iQue.

If this is correct, there should be a few (but not easy) ways to get games onto the iQue.

1) Copy the javascript that the program uses, and push the game cache files onto the iQue in the same way the program does. This would require spoofing authentication and unique ID.

2) Create a server emulator that handles requests the same way the actual server does. This would require knowledge of the iQue Serverside infrastructure, and possibly spoofing of the ID (if you cant have the server push a null ID).

I have a few other theories, but they're escaping me right now as I'm at work.
Hopefully this isn't old information. I'll keep looking around, no matter where as I encrypt my network activity. I'll post findings.

 

Interesting to see this thing get picked up again.

To note an old point. I think point cards have always been plastic and people got the wrong idea about them being paper (i have two).

Sadly when I had my wife grab me one years/years/years ago it was an old unit not updated. When I got it updated on a future vacation, we end up having to send it to ique in beijing since the after market service center no longer had the retail machines to upgrade units. =/

I think there was an initial update for older units that would flash the card so the unit could use the usb port and communicate with the iQue@Home app. Then a further update after the @Home app was released.

Anyways I still actually have mine and I am looking forward to what you figure out.

 

The early ones were card, for sure - I got some old second-hand units and they had the (used) game cards still in the box. All the ones I've ever seen on sale have been plastic, though.

 

Cool! Do you have a picture? It'd be neat to see these.

I'll let you know my findings! It's great that yours was updated. I'm sure mine was opened and updated by iQue or a third party (it was still sealed though), as the new sticker with the iQue@Home logo was covering the previously mentioned red sticker. iQue probably had stock returned to them for updating and any that weren't returned were left with the old firmware.

 

Sadly, no - I got the units for a friend of mine and just sent them off as received. I just asked him, and he can't even remember where the boxes are now.

 

I don't know if this will help, but I found the download link for the nintendo ique home menu
https://app.box.com/s/ft4n3xirvz9lhuejr9m2
Nevermind, just edited the post, I found out its the Ique@home program :/
Dont download it.

 

Hope this can be modded