• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Chinese Nintendo Switch games region locked to Chinese Tencent Switch systems, games sold at approximately $40 each

Status
Not open for further replies.

Deleted member 3812

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,821
Just found these tweets reporting that the Chinese Nintendo Switch games that are being published by Tencent and sold for approximately $40 each are region locked to the Chinese Tencent Switch system, the Chinese Switch can play imported Switch games but online won't work for imports, international Switch systems will not be able to play Tencent Switch games:








 
Rand a. Thor

Rand a. Thor

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
10,213
Greece
So its basically iQue all over again, but maybe with Tencent it will have a wider catalogue. Kinda sucks for Mainland China. I would think in 2019 these kinda practices would be done with, but this does explain how the major console manufacturers never have and possibly never could gain significant market share over there.
 
kami_sama

kami_sama

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,997
Rand a. Thor said:
So its basically iQue all over again, but maybe with Tencent it will have a wider catalogue. Kinda sucks for Mainland China. I would think in 2019 these kinda practices would be done with, but this does explain how the major console manufacturers never have and possibly never could gain significant market share over there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, at least you can play imported games this time.
Iirc with iQUE you only could play dowloaded games.
I think the N64 chinese version had a rewritable cartridge that you had to take to a stand to put the games in.
 
fiendcode

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,906
kami_sama said:
Well, at least you can play imported games this time.
Iirc with iQUE you only could play dowloaded games.
I think the N64 chinese version had a rewritable cartridge that you had to take to a stand to put the games in.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's more like the iQue GBA and DS models, which let you play physical games from any region.
 
kami_sama

kami_sama

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,997
fiendcode said:
It's like like the iQue GBA and DS models, which let you play physical games from any region.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Didn't know that.

EDIT: I was right about the N64 version:
Games for the iQue Player are stored on a 64 MB flash card which is contained within a cartridge that plugs directly into the controller/console. Games were purchased at a special "iQue depot", where games could be downloaded onto the cartridge and played later, in a similar manner to the Famicom Disk System, Satellaview, Nintendo 64DD and Nintendo DS Download Play. Games could also be downloaded by connecting the iQue to a PC.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQue_Player
 
kradical

kradical

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,570
Mariip said:
Censorship

Chinese government is pretty strict so all content has to go through certification
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So the reason Chinese switches can play games from any region, but Chinese games won't work outside of China is Chinese government censorship? How does that make sense?
The reason almost certainly is that the games are much cheaper in China and Nintendo don't want people outside China importing the cheap games.
 
Komii

Komii

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,554
kradical said:
So the reason Chinese switches can play games from any region, but Chinese games won't work outside of China is Chinese government censorship? How does that make sense?
The reason almost certainly is that the games are much cheaper in China and Nintendo don't want people outside China importing the cheap games.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh i skimmed over, thought they could only play chinese games, my bad, idk whats going on then
 
Vennt

Vennt

Member
Oct 27, 2017
647
Mariip said:
Oh i skimmed over, thought they could only play chinese games, my bad, idk whats going on then
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What's going on is Tencent have managed a deal where they can sell cheaply to the Chinese market without Nintendo having to "worry" about the rest of the world's pricing being affected by export from China.

It's grey import market control.
 
Komii

Komii

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,554
Vennt said:
What's going on is Tencent have managed a deal where they can sell cheaply to the Chinese market without Nintendo having to "worry" about the rest of the world's pricing being affected by export from China.

It's grey import market control.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yikes, so much for no region locking.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.