In spite of everything, Soulja Boy is selling more sketchy consoles

Soulja Boy, oh Soulja Boy.

It’s been a whole saga with this rapper turned game console retailer. He sold morally and legally dubious games consoles. Blatant rebranded markups these would attract ire and controversy. Neither of which helped when he would go on to expand his product line. No one was surprised when he suddenly and unceremoniously pulled the items from his website, Soulja Watch. This was the end of a rather illegitimate-looking business.

Oh, how naive I feel now, how optimistic. In spite of everything, Soulja’s game console business has once more arisen from its grave.

Behold, the SouljaGame Handheld! Which confusingly enough is a name for two new consoles and one old one which has since been removed. For the sake of clarity, I’ll refer to them as “The Pocket Light” and “The Vita”.

The Pocket Light is a pretty cheap product, selling for a mere $28.68. Now, this, of course, is a bit of a hike, with the original “PVP: Pocket Light” being available for around $7 USD on Alibaba. There is no obvious signs of rebranding visible on the promotional images, which is par for the course at this point. It also runs afoul by including a game card with preloaded games.

Having said that I’m somewhat suspicious of the validity of these claims. The website lists that the game card includes 888888 games on a card. With one number repeated 6 times, it seems like a placeholder.  Sure memory is getting better, and this version is only designed to run 8-bit style games but almost a million games seem excessive.

The other handheld (aka “The Vita”) is named because it bears a striking resemblance to the PSVita, Sony’s 2012 handheld. This was a bit of a harder item to track down: only one place listed a price 2,982 Kenyan shillings, approximately $29.34 USD. This is compared to the sale price of $99 USD and the listed full price of $200 USD.  This one doesn’t have any details referring to preloaded games, so it remains to be seen if it is legally in hot water.

Basically, Soulja Boy’s put himself back on the game console market again. Maybe he will be forced to remove these consoles, maybe not. It’s clear that trying to predict his behavior is a fool’s errand. Hopefully, they get taken down, and this whole saga may end. I’m not hopeful this be resolved peacefully or in the near future.