At a discount store called Christmas Tree Shops, I found one of their store-brand Wii knockoffs-- which just happens to look very much like one of Qi Sheng Long's "All Sports" units. With what clearly looked like
Senca Tech Niutai's VT168 games, based on the illustrations.
And it had a cartridge slot that
looked Famicom-like, but as Taizou has observed with his own QSL plug-n-play, not all Famicom-like cartridge slots are actually compatible.
Oh, and it was sixteen dollars.
WHY DID I DECIDE NOT TO BUY THE THING? *facepalm* Maybe they'll still have it in stock when I go back...
Edited to add: I think it might've been identical to
this WiWi, actually. The cartridge definitely looks like the one that was on the box, anyway.
Edit #2: But the sports cartridge on
RetroGamerVX's EZi Sports system looks very similar, and it's a much smaller selection of games. (Wish I'd gotten a picture-- don't remember whether it said 18-in-1 or 198-in-1 on the cart. Not that the cart is in any way representative of the one contained inside, regardless.) Whatever it is, though, I'm certain that (a) it's by Qi Sheng Long, and (b) it has at least
some VT168 sports games by
Senca Niutai.
Edit #3: GAH, my brain needs rest. I'm getting my pirate companies mixed up all over the place. Niutai, not Senca! Also, they might be Sunplus, not VT. I
really should've gotten photos, because I'm running off foggy memories right now.
Now that I think about it even more, I am almost certain that the console I referenced above is
this version of the WiWi. The box design seems awfully familiar to me-- although I think they only showed the top 8 games on the back, and filled the rest with legal boilerplate, contact info on Christmas Tree Shops, etc.
There's a Wiii3-branded version with a similar box design. This further confirms it for me - I definitely remember this one having a Mega Drive-style controller with blue buttons.
So yeah, 16-bit Niutai games it almost certainly is! Just not sure if it's VT or Sunplus 16-bit.