What caused the iQue Player tank in sales?

There are many people especially in America who are unaware of the iQue Player which was released exclusively China back in late 2003. For those who do not know the iQue Player was a home console that was developed by Nintendo and manufactured by iQue. The main purpose of the iQue Player was limit video game piracy and the console was probably the first ever to require 64 MB flash cards in relation to gameplay. Some can make the argument that the iQue Player was ahead of its time since players had to download video games from their PC or from the iQue depot. However, in late 2001 Microsoft had launched an online service for the Xbox console which was more popular during the early 00’s. The iQue Player could have definitely been more popular during the late 90’s than it was during the mid 00’s especially since it mainly featured N64 games. Also, by the time we got to the mid 00’s the PS2, Xbox and GameCube were already dominating the gaming scene.

In terms of sales iQue Player would be considered a commercial failure in the eyes of many people since it only managed to reach somewhere between 8,000-12,000 in sales. It should be noted that the lifespan of the iQue Player had lasted approximately 12-13 years since it was ultimately discontinued in 2016. However, since the iQue Player was released exclusively in China it’s not surprising that the iQue Player tanked in sales. Also, by the late 00’s-early 10’s the gaming industry had evolved greatly and the iQue Player was pretty much obsolete by then. We had consoles like the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 which were all huge worldwide and PC gaming was starting to become more popular during late 00’s and early 10’s.