Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles • Hacker News Board

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#61

Post by atombender » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

So has anyone tried the Chinese pirate console that he's apparently rebranding?

It looks like it's this one [1], $89 on Amazon. Emulates PS1, GBC, SNES and more, with 843 games, including classics like Super Mario Bros.

I'd absolutely love to have something like this in my living room, but I think I'd prefer a somewhat less suspect, more hacker-friendly system where one could easily add new games. But I also don't know anything about this one.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Console-Entertainment-System-Classic-...

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#62

Post by fabricexpert » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

atombender wrote: post #61

So has anyone tried the Chinese pirate console that he's apparently rebranding? It looks like it's this one [1], $89 on Amazon. Emulates PS1, GBC, SNES and more, with 843 games, including classics like Super Mario Bros. I'd absolutely love to have something like this in my living room, but I think I'd prefer a somewhat less suspect, more hacker-friendly system where one could easily add new games. But I also don't kn…

There's lots of reviews on youtube of this kind of thing.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#63

Post by zeroname » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #2

These are just Alibaba emulators with ROMs preloaded right? How is he expecting not to get sued by every game dev and manufacturer from the last 30 years?

> How is he expecting not to get sued by every game dev and manufacturer from the last 30 years?

Probably by being broke. Nintendo might still prosecute to make a point though.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#64

Post by xenihn » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #45

fb03 wrote: post #16

I would sincerely love to know how he got this idea. I mean, he is a renowned musician. Why would he out of nowhere sell something that reeks of piracy and can get him into problems? I fail to understand.

He's broke and a glorified scam artist at this point. Has been selling all sorts of garbage Chinese products marked up under his own "brand", as well as the scams where he offers to buy everyone products for "free" and you just pay the shipping. https://twitter.com/souljaboy/status/814639677550362624?lang... https://news.avclub.com/we-can-all-learn-something-from-the-... http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2017/02/soulja-boy-…

My guess is he's not broke broke -- he probably has millions in debt for assets like homes and cars and whatever else, and he's doing this to pay those off. I don't think someone who is getting paid $200 just to record themselves namedropping people is broke in the same way that someone who actually has no way to earn income is.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#65

Post by frozenport » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #48

pkulak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, to me he seems like the gullible victim here. In addition to anyone who buys it, I suppose.

Except he's probably getting paid...

Might have taken on substantial legal liabilities.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#66

Post by orblivion » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

Since scarcity of IP has less meaning these days, branding and identity seem to be what's scarce and interesting. Somehow, I love this whole idea.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#67

Post by zeroname » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #24

The article handily links to the Alibaba store: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/3850034 I suspect what happened is that someone approached him with the idea of putting his brand on it, and he was flattered; otherwise it's basically the Amazon drop shipping business.

He's not even branding it really. He's just shipping junk from China wholesale and selling it locally, like many other people do. The only difference is that he's somewhat prominent, so he gets some free publicity out of it. That same publicity is probably going to get him into some legal trouble.

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#68

Post by sctb » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

sehugg wrote: post #6

Could just link to the original IGN article: https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/05/souljaboy-is-selling...

Thanks! Updated from https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/soulja-boy-video-game-console....

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#69

Post by com2kid » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #42

slashink wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really interesting part is that the highlight marketing photos are using pictures of an Apple Watch and when you actually check the product, the "real" photos is nothing like it. This is basically adding a known brand onto cheap tech knockoff products.

Here is a video [0] of him with it on, yeah, nothing like the Apple watch. Also on the topic of cheap Chinese watches I would read the section of this article on the smartwatch [1] and note this was published 2 years ago. That whole article is interesting but the smartwatch and their contact who said it only cost them $6 to make (note they bought the watches for just under $10 each): > If the factory sold the watches…

The insane part is, if you are an American company trying to release a smart watch, you won't be able to get your cost of goods down that low.

I worked on the Microsoft Band team, the RAM inside the Band cost almost the same as these watches cost to make all up!

Annoyingly enough, when we asked MediaTek if we could buy use their chipset, they would only sell it to us with their OS running on top. IIRC I think they were softening up on this stance later on.

Suffice to say after paying for a Western company's MCU + the RAM, the cost was already way above what these watches cost to make, add in all the other parts and, well, that is how you end up with a $200 MSRP.

On the flip side, things like a custom made light pipe to improve HR accuracy are necessary to go from "good enough" to "best in class".

Re: Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

#70

Post by thg » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

atombender wrote: post #61

So has anyone tried the Chinese pirate console that he's apparently rebranding? It looks like it's this one [1], $89 on Amazon. Emulates PS1, GBC, SNES and more, with 843 games, including classics like Super Mario Bros. I'd absolutely love to have something like this in my living room, but I think I'd prefer a somewhat less suspect, more hacker-friendly system where one could easily add new games. But I also don't kn…

Have a look at RetroPie: https://retropie.org.uk/

Doesn't come with any game ROMs, but there are enough places you can download them. Once you have them, it's just a simple file transfer to install them.