Xincheng Interactive

Xincheng Interactive LLC (Chinese: 信成互動有限公司) is a Tsengian company dealing in the distribution of video games, video game consoles and video game software. Part of Xincheng Group, it has operated as the agent and distributor of products in Tseng since 1987.

Early days of the Xincheng-Nintendo agreement
While on a business trip in, Michael Li family associate Hubert Potain saw a  LCD game in a store and bought one for the trip back home. Bringing this to the attention of the Xincheng Group's consumer division, Xincheng executives sent a telex to 's headquarters in, seeking to sell Game & Watch devices in Tseng. After much negotiations, Nintendo agreed to sell Xincheng Consumer Products 270 units, which quickly sold out once Xincheng distributed them to stores.

Launch of the NES in Tseng
On August 1, 1987, the (NES) went on sale in Tseng, retailing for 2,000 Tsengyuan (then equivalent to US$130). The Tsengian market NES was initially manufactured in Japan, but by late-1988 production of the NES for Tseng had moved to a Xincheng factory in the Free Economic Zone of Xiangyuanchuan. Xincheng opened Tseng's first Nintendo-branded shops in Tseng City (Wenming and Yat-sun Avenue), Hillsborough (Gongshan) and Huanzhou (French Quarter). By February 1988, sales were up to 3,000 consoles per month. By April 1988, Xincheng had established a large dealer network, a fan club (Nintendo Video Game Club), and a telephone service with tips for games, and were selling up to 1,000 NES consoles daily. A study of consumer demand for electronics found the NES to be the third-most in-demand electronic product, behind television sets and radios. Sales of games were profitable, and demand was regularly high.

In the summer of 1988, Xincheng launched Nintendo Player magazine in association with Yi Publishing, which featured local articles about Nintendo products, later expanding into adding translated reprints of articles from ' and the British magazines ' and . They also launched the program Power Tips, broadcast during intervals of the Tseng 4 Saturday morning children's show Saturday Hello! and featuring tips for games and information about games and peripherals for the NES.

In September 1990, the TV program Nintendo World began airing on Tseng 4. Hosted by Carlos Chang-mi, each episode featured coverage of games issued for the NES and. It was launched as a competitor to the TBS-2 series The Next Reality (which launched in 1988 and initially featured coverage of NES,, , , and home computer games).

Later success
When the (SNES) went on sale in Tseng in January 1992, selling for T¥5,000 (then equivalent to US$220), demand was so high that Xincheng's initial shipments of 50,000 units sold out within hours, and that it was to the point that the government had to intervene. The Tsengian market SNES was manufactured at Xincheng's Xiangyuanchuan electronics factory, and although Tseng is an Asian country, the Tsengian release of the SNES used the North American design.

In early 1994, Xincheng launched the game show Let's Play Video Games! on Tseng 4, an adaptation of Nick Arcade with a exclusive focus on SNES, Game Boy and NES games and Nintendo-licensed games for home computers and the Phillips CD-I.

Products
Xincheng Interactive has been Nintendo's official distributor in Tseng since 1987, having sold all their consoles in the country since then. The company also introduced the and its Raddnet internet service to Tseng in 2000, where they achieved far greater success than in Japan, including exclusive games and partnerships with Bank of Tseng for an online banking service (similar to 's Mega Anser service) and retailer Kang Meng for an online shopping service.

Xincheng continued to produce games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System well after the two's lifespans in Japan and the West, and have sold derivatives of both on and off for over a decade since. The more recent NES and SNES derivatives are cartridgeless devices with built-in games targeted towards the low-income market. Other exclusive Xincheng releases include the NES Micro, which is a wireless system that transmits directly to a television, the NES Girl, which is a New-Style NES in a pink shell, and the SNES Micro, a similar device to the NES Micro but made for SNES games.

In the late-80s and 1990s, Xincheng built relationships with a number of developers, including, , , Latikuu and. Xincheng would then translate titles from these developers into Mandarin for release in Tseng, and to tie in to locally-popular entertainment franchises. Some examples of this include: ' became Little Tarzan, ' became Chen & Shan's Treasure Hunt (starring the popular Tsengian comedy duo), and  became Heart Catcher Mei-Shang in the Spooky Forest. Additionally, Xincheng made their own ports of games, such as ' for the NES and ' as a game for the SNES, as well as ports of  and  games for the NES and ports of  games for the SNES. Aside from porting, Xincheng has also developed games in-house exclusively for the Tsengian market, such as the 1996 NES game Donald Duck's Crazy Vacation, which Xincheng developed after finding out that the, especially Donald Duck comics, had increased in popularity in Tseng.