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

  • bortsampson [he/him, any]
    ·
    5 days ago

    Anbernic is fine. They don't directly ship roms on cards. They probably got a bunch of those cheap ESP32 8bit devices that come loaded with every NES game. Fuck Italy and fuck IP law. I'm not a Chomsky fan but he is right about IP. It's a tool used to supress industry in the global south.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      5 days 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]
          ·
          5 days 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

          • bortsampson [he/him, any]
            ·
            5 days ago

            The "Official" Ali store is an official reseller. Anbernic supposedly just makes the hardware and is out of direct to consumer sales. I'm not familiar with the portmaster controversy but if true (damn that would be nice lol) that's not not a good look. Do you have any links? I suppose they could just change names and continue operating even if they had their US pressence shut down.

            • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
              ·
              5 days 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

              • bortsampson [he/him, any]
                ·
                5 days ago

                I didn't even realize how advanced portmaster had gotten. I just want to play Fallout NV on one of these cheap handhelds. It's felt like they have been 1 generation away for years now.

                You are right though. The crackdown is coming. They are pushing up against the IPs that still make companies lots of money. Definitely smart of them to pull the firmware. Pretty cool to see a company listen to the community.

                • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
                  ·
                  5 days 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

                  • bortsampson [he/him, any]
                    ·
                    5 days ago

                    I didn't know about Winlator. Thanks! I just watched someone on the rg556 playing NV on it. It's almost there. Maybe another 10% increase in hardware performance and it would be playable. Apparently mods work too.

                    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
                      ·
                      5 days ago

                      Can't imagine the battery life will be great, but apparently the Steam Deck can get away with like 3 hours so what do I know

                      Meanwhile I'm still thinking it's incredible that I can play PS1/N64/Dreamcast games on my phone

                      • bortsampson [he/him, any]
                        ·
                        5 days ago

                        Oh I definitely enjoy those games as well. And it's cool to see them look even better with all the emulator tweaks. I think I've clocked more hours in DS games than I feel comfortable mentioning lol.