{"id":91175,"date":"2026-10-14T13:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91175"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:44:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:44:43","slug":"retro-handhelds-loaded-with-unlicensed-games-could-face-government-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91175","title":{"rendered":"Retro Handhelds Loaded With Unlicensed Games Could Face Government Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Electronic Software Association (ESA) has a serious bone to pick with retro handhelds that are packaged with tons of unlicensed pre-installed, calling these devices &#8220;superfakes&#8221; that should face some sort of suppression by the US government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.regulations.gov\/comment\/USTR-2026-0529-0010\">an October 6 filing<\/a> with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)&#8211;which monitors marketplaces that are accused of engaging in or enabling piracy and counterfeiting&#8211;the ESA is urging the government to clamp down on what it calls &#8220;illicit plug-and-play consoles and handheld devices.&#8221; The ESA wants the USTR to add these emulation devices to the Notorious Markets List, the agency&#8217;s annual report identifying which markets are participating in such behavior, thereby barring or slowing their profits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;In the video game sector, illicit plug-and-play consoles and handheld devices are the functional equivalent<br \/>of superfakes,&#8221; the ESA told the USTR. &#8220;They can look and feel like legitimate, mass-market consumer electronics: molded housings, color displays, polished user interfaces, retail packaging, product reviews, warranty-like representations,<br \/>and listings on familiar e-commerce platforms. Yet their commercial appeal rests solely on a concealed<br \/>memory card or internal drive loaded with hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of unauthorized<br \/>copies of copyright-protected games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ESA puts a specific spotlight on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Electronic Software Association (ESA) has a serious bone to pick with retro handhelds that are packaged with tons of unlicensed pre-installed, calling these devices &#8220;superfakes&#8221; that should face some sort of suppression by the US government. According to an October 6 filing with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)&#8211;which monitors marketplaces&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":91177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91178,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91175\/revisions\/91178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}