Topic: Can Tencent Switch Play Foreign games in English?

Hey so stupid me didn't even realize I was buying a tencent switch (thought it was from Hong Kong) while living in China. Low and behold, can't change language settings. Trying to return it and possibly buy a Japanese one but it is seeming as though we cannot do so. That being said I am looking at alternatives.

The question is the same as the title, if I were to buy, say, Zelda: BOTW from Japan or where have you, would I be able to change the game settings to English? I have been scouring the internet with hints of an answer to this but if I commit to this I would prefer a more definitive one (so much so that as a 27 year old this is most first forum post of any kind anywhere).

Any help for a Canadian (eh) in Guiyang, China?

Thanks

@rytechyes So you bought a Switch knock off? At least thats what I am getting cause Nintendo makes Switch so if it's a Tencent Switch that means it's a knock off. Which if that's the case I doubt Nintendo games will even work on that thing.

According to this Nintendo Life article, it can play games from other regions. However you can't use online services in those games. There's also a total of three games on the eShop for that system.

@Tasuki See the article I linked above. It does exist, and it's not a knock-off.

@Sunsy Thanks Sunsy, so just to be 100% clear I could therefore play those games in English (I know it seems redundant but my girlfriend is worried about us losing money haha)

Thanks

@Tasuki Hey, nope China tech giant Tencent partnered with Nintendo to release this Chinese version...but unfortunately it is only Chinese and has limited games in the online store (just 3)

@rytechyes You're welcome. Just be aware from the sounds of it, it may be pretty limited, you may eventually consider a localized Switch because of that alone. The eShop is really small if you want to ever play a download game, with region locking, I don't know if any of the other eShops would work.

I'm just going by the articles since I remember reading about this Switch model here.

@Sunsy @rytechyes Wow that is weird I wonder why they did that. I mean Nintendo is a big enough company that they could have published it themselves that would be like them teaming up with Mattel to release the Switch here in NA. Bizarre.

@rytechyes Sorry to hear that man. Also living in China (Guangxi not far from Guizhou), but I got my Switch from Taobao.

But I think you are going to have a problem... The thing is if you want to change the language in a game you need to go to the system settings and select English. Then the game will display in same language as the UI.

The problem is, that Tencent Switch doesn’t have English as a UI option so it might not be possible to change the language of the game even though the cartridge has it as an option. So I’d check to make sure you change the language of the game through the options menu of that particular game. I’m pretty sure with BOTW there isn’t a “language” option on the in-game options screen.

Man, I suggest you get rid of this and buy another version. first of all, this is made by tencent, theres probably some spyware on it. you cant change language, you might not be able to play some games if the chinese government order them to make an update excluding some games. I'm also an expat in guangzhou.

@Tasuki It's because China is strick when it comes to video games released in their country, so it's easier for Nintendo to have Tencent, a Chinese company, to go through to sell it

@rytechyes And I would definitely try to return the Chinese version. At some point in time you are going to run into a issue with and regret it. Not to mention the amount of amazing eshop games you won't be able to buy. And online games won't work either.

@NotTelevision @MasterJay unfortunately we've contacted the company and they won't let us return it... guess I need to push my mandarin past pinyin. Ah well thanks all

@Tasuki As many are mentioning about the partnership, I'd like to point out that Nintendo released the GBA, 3DS, and the DS under the iQue brand in China too at one point. They even made a plug-n-play controller with N64 games called the iQue Player to bypass the console ban China had. Nintendo releasing a system under a different brand isn't new, it is rather interesting history to read about.

@rytechyes how much did you pay for it?

@Ninfan I think it was around 2000 rmb = 400$ Canadian or like 350$ US, something like that. My girlfriend did the purchase otherwise I think this would have been avoided haha. We are just making due, playing games that require little english.

If we were to buy Zelda BOTW I could change spoken language in the game to english, but not menu or text language. I have played it before so I am debating getting it still and just going with it...

@rytechyes You can sell it as second hand on chinese websites. or you can just put it aside and get a real switch. any of these options are totally worth it.

@GUSWANG While this is true, it was hard enough to convince my girlfriend to get it in the first place and she would have to do most of the work given all in Chinese...so to avoid her stressing out I will just have to make due. I have a switch back in Canada so I won't have too much time to play here anyways with work so ah well

i hv a question here. Soooo, I hv the tencent switch here since my dad bought it from taobao. Can i play global cartridges on the tencent switch bcuz like i saw a few articles saying tht the tencent switch can play global cartridges in offline mode but the normal switch cant play tencent version. I'm juz like really skeptical bout those articles. juz wnt to k if its true or not

@status-204
You can’t blame the Chinese for the hard feelings. I mean I’m sure Americans would feel the same had the Japanese done the exactly the same things to USA what they did in China. Ironically as for the CCP Mao once said to a visiting Japanese prime minister that there’s no need to apologize he should thank them because the Japanese inadvertently helped the CCP win the power struggle in China.

@Sunsy
I think the 3DS iQue only got two games, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. The 3DS XL was even released there. I assume the handheld must have really sold poorly to only have 2 titles released for it.