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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

#101

Post by yellowapple »

p1necone wrote: post #88
erikpukinskis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The difference is that those products are actually new things created for those brands, and are (relatively) high quality. This is a cheap emulator box being drop shipped from Aliexpress that already existed before Soulja Boi slapped his name on it. (Not to mention that it's almost certainly violating copyright laws with all the roms bundled with it).

IIRC, Beats are also just rebranded Chinese headphones. You can buy them direct from China for half the price (but without that lowercase "b" on 'em).

Besides the blatant copyright infringement, I ain't seeing how this is any worse.

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

#102

Post by jamesb93 »

azinman2 wrote: post #23

The Soulja watch is interesting to me. I see very similar ones coming from China, but it’s pretty amazing that at any hardware spec a “smart” watch could be sold as little as $10, let alone with profit. They’re shameless rips of Apple, but at $10 damn that’s crazy.

When you see crap like that being made for $10 you should immediately think "that is made with disgusting labour". No part of you should be impressed with this. Not saying expensive branded stuff is any better, but they arent smart in making a $10 watch - they just don't have the momentum of a big brand to sell it a thousand percent markup.

TLDR; products like this are just a terrible production of waste using barely legal labour. Pay it no attention.

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

#103

Post by kakarot »

butterfi wrote: post #83
kakarot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Kanye is quite into fashion and apparel, instead of just making assumptions about someone's capabilities because they're famous, use that energy to learn about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Fashion

Just because someone is famous, doesn't mean they are especially good at a job. Michael Jordan is a much better basketball player then a baseball player.

Ok but he actually has a company with products he cares about and is involved with, so whether or not the product is "good" by your judgement, it still shows that he's earnest and not trying to make a quick cash-in with minimal effort.

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

#104

Post by User23 »

p1necone wrote: post #88
erikpukinskis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The difference is that those products are actually new things created for those brands, and are (relatively) high quality. This is a cheap emulator box being drop shipped from Aliexpress that already existed before Soulja Boi slapped his name on it. (Not to mention that it's almost certainly violating copyright laws with all the roms bundled with it).

How is that different than slapping his name on a T-shirt and charging an even larger percentage markup?

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

#105

Post by xsmasher »

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-…

That second link (avclub) is a story about someone taking over an expired domain and redirecting it; Soulja Boy wasn't selling anything except his album.

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

#106

Post by rasz »

azinman2 wrote: post #23

The Soulja watch is interesting to me. I see very similar ones coming from China, but it’s pretty amazing that at any hardware spec a “smart” watch could be sold as little as $10, let alone with profit. They’re shameless rips of Apple, but at $10 damn that’s crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwbrYCh3Oo

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

#107

Post by rasz »

Jaruzel wrote: post #30

I'm semi-famous. Does anyone want to buy a raspberry pi running RetroArch with my name written on it? /s

You can charge $400 if you are famous enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rxCD_bMhZA https://www.retromodding.com/collections/preconfigured-build...

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

#108

Post by scarface74 »

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?

I don’t think Soulja Boy has fans. He was basically a one hit wonder back in 2007 who couldn’t rap but had one catchy song.

Dr. Dre has been active for 30 years and produced for and rapped with a number of successful rappers including Eazy-E, Tupac, Snoop Dog, Ice Cube, 50 cent, and Eminem. To even think about putting him and Soulja Boy in the same sentence is crazy.

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

#109

Post by whywhywhywhy »

jacquesm wrote: post #90
miranda_rights wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kanye interned at Fendi about 12 years ago - he's definitely pretty involved in fashion beyond just lending his name

> Kanye interned at Fendi about 12 years ago I guess that makes him an expert. He's in politics too. Amazing man of many talents.

> I guess that makes him an expert.

No it made him a student he's passionate about fashion and wanted to learn how the industry worked from the inside, but I'd argue designing one of the most iconic men's shoes of the decade that made him an expert.

You can hate on his confidence and attitude all you like but I think it's silly to pretend he isn't responsible for his own achievements just because you don't like the guy.

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

#110

Post by tinus_hn »

User23 wrote: post #104
p1necone wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that those products are actually new things created for those brands, and are (relatively) high quality. This is a cheap emulator box being drop shipped from Aliexpress that already existed before Soulja Boi slapped his name on it. (Not to mention that it's almost certainly violating copyright laws with all the roms bundled with it).

How is that different than slapping his name on a T-shirt and charging an even larger percentage markup?

One is against the law, the other isn’t.
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