News: Nintendo iQue | Heading to America Page 1

Nintendo iQue | Heading to America

15.05.2004

Nintendo iQue...
...Who Needs The DS?!

There is a lot of new news surrounding Nintendo's iQue system, a device that resembles a DreamCast controller and acts basically as a portable Nintendo 64 console that plugs into TV screens and can have new games downloaded to it via Flash cards that you take to an iQue Depot. The first, major piece of news is that Nintendo has confirmed the release of the iQue outside of China, with minor modifications since it was only permitted for release in that country because it was meant to be 'exclusive' to that area. It seems that Nintendo is aiming to release the portable N64 in regions where full priced consoles would likely be too expensive for people to afford. Therefore the next port of call is supposedly other Asian markets and South America. A date for this move is currently unknown, but is expected to not be too far in the future since Nintendo only has to translate a few menus and manuals.

Next up there are som new entries into the field of iQue: Yoshi's Story and Paper Mario, thus sticking to the roster of games shown on the original iQue packaging, leading many to wonder where Nintendo will look next since all of them have now been put out on the market. Lik Sang speculates Animal Crossing, I personally will hazard a guess at Treasure's Sin & Punishment or Left Field's Excitebike 64 - wonder who will be closest? There is no Third Party support so far, so rule out games like ISS and Resident Evil 2 for the time being.

This adds to the current roster of Super Mario 64, Dr Mario, Starfox 64 (Lylat Wars), F-Zero X, Wave Race 64 and Mario Kart 64 - all of which, bar Super Mario 64, have multiplayer functionality that can only now be supported by purchasing a special adapter and additional controllers.

Finally, Nintendo has been generous enough to provide the Chinese with downloadable manuals and game cards for current iQue games. For those that are interested, the images of some can be seen above and the links are here:

Game Cards

Manuals

As soon as the South American versions are released, presumably with English text included somewhere along the way, C3 will let you know!

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