Madlittlepixel/YouTube/SouljaWatchRapper Soulja Boy has been making waves in recent wakes by selling his own line of bizzarre knockoff consoles. While one might admire his entrepreneurial spirit, the problem is that these consoles are loaded with pirated games.
These cheaply made boxes come preloaded with games from the Mega Drive, NES, SNES, and even PlayStation, and there hasn’t been any confirmation that Soulja managed to crank out any kind of licensing deals with the companies who actually own the games.
Any gamer worth his or her salt will of course know that Nintendo is fiercely protective of its IPs, so it won’t come as a shock to learn that the house of Mario are reportedly already taking legal action against the rapper.
According to MTO News, Nintendo has sent a letter to Soulja Boy, informing him that the design for one his consoles – the one that looks exactly like a classic Game Boy Colour – violates the Trademark Counterfeiting Act.
The offending console is called the Retro SouljaBoy Mini, and you can take a look at it for yourself below. Look familiar?
SouljaWatchNintendo have yet to confirm themselves whether or not they’ve begun legal proceedings against Soulja Boy over his console business, but I think it’s pretty obvious that they’ve got grounds to do so – not just over the design of the console, but the illegal ROMS too.
According to the Trademark Counterfeiting Act, “Imprisonment for the first offence is up to 10 years, and up to 20 years for repeat offenders.” I personally doubt it’d get to jail time, although this case will certainly cost Soulja Boy a hefty stack of cash if true.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.