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Soulja Boy Is Selling Cheap Emulators as His Own Consoles

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

#71

Post by okmokmz »

xenihn wrote: post #64
okmokmz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that he couldn't come up with $675 for a car rental, and has had some other similar issues including being unable to pay his rent, leads me to beleive he's broke broke. His mother has come out claiming he is as well. He may earn $200 just to record himself, but then he goes and spends $1000 on designer clothes and poorly made jewelry. This is all hearsay of course

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #49
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.

What makes you think he isn’t just interested in video games, discovered emulators and liked the product and saw that it wasn’t being marketed to his audience? Are you familiar with the ways musicians, particularly in hip hop, diversify their business portfolios by selling product lines? Are you familiar with Fenty, Beats by Dre, etc?

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by olliej »

Well I mean this seems entirely reasonable to me - I’m not sure but I suspect he isn’t an engineer, and even if he is, why waste time and money on designing something that has already been designed and built?

I’m also surprised that so many people in the comments are against this, especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law.

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

#74

Post by atombender »

thg wrote: post #70
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.

Thanks. Looks like something I need a Raspberry Pi to run? I'd like something that just works out of the box, zero building or fiddling with hardware.

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

#75

Post by throwaway2016a »

olliej wrote: post #73

Well I mean this seems entirely reasonable to me - I’m not sure but I suspect he isn’t an engineer, and even if he is, why waste time and money on designing something that has already been designed and built? I’m also surprised that so many people in the comments are against this, especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law.

> especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law.

Anecdotally, after years of being on HN I can't recall anyone arguing to get rid of copyright.

Tons of arguments for getting rid of software patents, strengthening fair use, and putting abandonware in the public domain but flat out against copyright as a concept is a bit extreme for NH.

Again, just an anecdote based on my experience.

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

#76

Post by ajay-d »

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…

Reminds me of the $100 iphone x clone https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvmkdd/counterfei...

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

#77

Post by olliej »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #75
olliej wrote: post #73

Well I mean this seems entirely reasonable to me - I’m not sure but I suspect he isn’t an engineer, and even if he is, why waste time and money on designing something that has already been designed and built? I’m also surprised that so many people in the comments are against this, especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law.

> especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law. Anecdotally, after years of being on HN I can't recall anyone arguing to get rid of copyright. Tons of arguments for getting rid of software patents, strengthening fair use, and putting abandonware in the public domain but flat out against copyright as a concept is a bit extreme for NH. Again, just an anecdote based on my…

There was a post a few weeks about getting rid of IP laws, with many comments from many people arguing that we should definitely get rid of all IP laws, including copyright.

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

#78

Post by beckler »

olliej wrote: post #73

Well I mean this seems entirely reasonable to me - I’m not sure but I suspect he isn’t an engineer, and even if he is, why waste time and money on designing something that has already been designed and built? I’m also surprised that so many people in the comments are against this, especially given how often I’ve seen people on HN arguing we should be getting rid of IP law.

I can't remember who made them, but older System76 machines were not made by System76.

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

#80

Post by sodafountan »

dleslie wrote: post #15
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local mall had something similar for sale at a kiosk. I was shocked that nobody checks to see if what they're selling is legal. The mall is owned by Macerich a company that owns a ton of malls all over the place.

Counterfeit items aren't a new thing; these are to video games as knock-off Prada bags are to fashion.

Right, this whole thread reads like hacker news is just discovering knock-offs
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