I wouldn't say it's a smashing success. No one I asked in China had even *heard* of the iQue, and the vast majority of people I knew are 20-something year old guys. I only saw it for sale once, at a Carrefour. It's tough to sell because 1) PC games are so much more popular (China has a "gameroom" phenomenon similar to S Korea) and 2) Pirated GBA carts are 3 bucks and available everywhere, whereas I never came across a pirated iQue cart. I can say with absolute certainty that I saw more Xbox stuff in China (legit Xbox, not pirated) than iQue.
One answer.......Does it really bother you so much, how fucking pedantic,ROFL.... Also, Kevin cure, I never said it had been a smashing success, but Ique(it is a company not a console.) has certainly done moderately to pretty well in certain regions of China and it cost them alot of money to release three legit consoles and legit games to go with them. China is such a massive country, you have to remeber that and the regions where piracy is more frowned upon is where the Ique products are doing pretty well. You also have to remeber that the machines have only been launched in these regions, so it is not unusual that some people have not heard of their products and the reason you have not seen pirate stufff is the same reason you have not seen many pirate carts for the Ds all over the world.Also mate the Gba sp and micro ARE IQUE products. Got to their website and have a look. You keep saying Ique as if it is one product, I que is the comapny and the n64 product is the IQUE player, the 50% Nintendo owned company has also released the IQUE DS, IQUE MICRO and Ique GBA sp. EDIT: Just to also say that the IQUE company has also posted some healthy profits, with the most successful products being the DS and GBA. They are also going to be releasing the IQUE version of the Gamecube in the coming year and Nintendo and Ique are heavily committed to the region, probably more so than any other legit manafacturer in the china region.Please browse Nintendo.co.jp for their press releases on the chinese arm of the business and also check out what Ique has to say as well.You have to remeber that they are the first legit company to make any sort of profit on console games in a country where piracy is rife and the main platform for games is the PC. Ique also opened their own store as well last year and the pictures of it can be found on the Ique site.
Right. I'd misread the comment the first time; I thought you'd said the iQue Player (the N64 system) was selling well. It absolutely isn't anywhere on the mainland (it might still be profitable; the system and a game were over US100 last I'd seen (!), but it's not a common item by any stretch). The co-licensed GB and DS products seem to be doing well, though.
Yeah I thought that we had got our wires crossed, I'm sorry bro . It's always interesting to follow the chinese market I think, I hope for a day when it will rid of itself of the outrageous piracy scene over there. Much as I like to see the odd hack game, it's such a massive market for developers of games to try to break into, and with China's industrial revolution it may not be long before the wages over there dramatically increase and with that the standards of living will get better and then that will obviously mean that families will for once have the money to spend on official games. I always feel that the day China becomes a viable market it will drive the price of software down as the market there has such potential to be as big as the US.
Actually, the piracy isn't as big an issue as you'd think it would be, now that we're in the age of the MMORPG. Games like WoW are *huge* on the mainland, and they're rather difficult to pirate, as you'd imagine. Most of the major PC developers release "China editions"; they strip out the English and sell the games for 50-100 yuan, which is 6-12 bucks. These are legit copies (i.e., they're sold at Ito Yokado, Carrefour and Walmart), and exactly the same as the US version except that the English is stripped out. There's definitely a piracy scene for these games as well (the pirated versions are something like US$1), but a good number of people still buy the "real version". I think a lot of the piracy in China is like that. For instance, you can buy knockoffs (of very good quality) of any shoe you can think of, but people who can afford the real thing buy the real one for the prestige. For all the bloviating of Western companies, the piracy doesn't really cost them much, because the people buying the fake D&G handbag aren't the same as the people who would buy a real one.
That's interesting to hear, I had imagined it was much worse and this was the reason the major companies are so reluctant to sell in the market. I do think if the companies reduced their RRp's and therfore their bloating profit's, they would be able to stamp out much more of the piracy in the region, but no one really seems willing to do that on a big scale.
Next time someone makes a valid point like "Learn how to use the edit button" dont be rude to them please. Also please do use the edit button because yes it does bother me and others that much.
