Italy's financial police said Friday they have dismantled a ring trafficking counterfeit vintage video game consoles from China containing some of the most popular titles of the 1980s and 90s."Around 12,000 consoles on which more than 47 million pirated video games were illegally stored were seized, for an estimated value of more than 47.5 million euros ($52.5 million)," Alessandro Langella, head of the economic crime unit for Turin's financial police, told AFP. The figure includes the value of

Not much info here but I wonder if these were some sort of fake NES/SNES/Mega Drive minis or just handheld emulation devices in general

I was wondering if shipping SD cards full of ROMs would ever come to bite the manufacturers in the ass and I guess it might have. Will this be a one-off thing or a sign of a wider EU crackdown? I think there was a warning earlier issued by some agency this month about how the solder in one of the Anbernic devices exceeded EU's maximum lead levels

Edit: There's a video of the Italian cops' raid on the warehouse where the devices were being held, looks like a large variety of different devices

https://youtu.be/U4lYIzijJSU?si=mmvXSsipSaMEnaOv

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      I'm pretty sure they do ship sd cards with roms though, unless it's the resellers on AE who supply those

        • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          Didn't they just have a bit of a controversy over the summer where they were going to start preloading their Linux-based consoles with Portmaster ports?

          The way it's supposed to work is that you supply the game files yourself the way the Super Mario 64 PC port does it

          From what I understand Anbernic was about to just add the games already ported which caused the retro emulation scene to beg them not to do it

            • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
              ·
              2 months ago

              Found a link- what happened was that the files were apparently going to be included in a firmware update

              https://retrohandhelds.gg/retro-handhelds-weekly-edition-3/

              Anbernic made a few waves of its own this week, but not for the reasons you might have hoped. While we are nearing the launch of the RG40XX, Anbernic released a new firmware update for the RG35XX H. This update turns Anbernic’s handheld into a 64-bit Linux system, along with adding native support for PC ports. These include titles such as Celeste, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, GTA III, and even Stardew Valley.

              The problem is that by including these titles with the latest firmware update, Anbernic is relying on pirated content. That’s an obvious no-no, especially considering that in order to use Ports, you need to have actually purchased the game and transferred the necessary files. Portmaster responded stating explaining its stance, complete with a “Zero Tolerance Policy.” Since the video was published, Anbernic has removed the download to the new build that includes the ports.

              These retro handhelds are probably already flying a bit too close to the sun as it is- they probably shouldn't be trying to attract even more attention, especially from companies like Take Two. It's good that they listened to Western users' concerns

                • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  I don't think you can play Fallout NV on a cheap handheld just yet- if you go look at the Android emulation subreddit you'll notice most posts are people playing various PC games through Winlator on current high end phones.

                  The most demanding PC game Anbernic showed was GTA III