Earlier this week, Soulja Boy expanded his repertoire to include both a smart watch called 'SouljaWatch,' and two highly questionable video game consoles. While the bizarre smart watch didn't really grab that much attention, his two consoles prompted a deep dive from a number of outlets, with video game publication Waypoint publishing a critical look at the technological side of things.
As Waypoint notes, the consoles themselves are manufactured by Anbernic, a company that makes consoles designed to emulate games developed for other platforms. That's why Soulja Boy's consoles claim to work with so many different game platforms, allegedly coming with over 800 games pre-installed. Besides being legally questionable, the consoles are also marked up on Soulja Boy's website despite being identical to Anbernic's other products.
To address some of the criticism, Soulja Boy sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone. “I know it’s new to the industry. I know they’re scratching their heads and there’s going to be a lot of talk, but hey man, I’m just a person with a dream,” Soulja told Rolling Stone. “I know that I’ve been introduced to the world as a rapper, dancer, producer, but don’t just limit me to that and think outside the box and really give me a shot with this.”
The SouljaGame Console is currently on sale for $150 on his website, while the SouljaGame Handheld is on sale for $100. Meanwhile, the original non-Soulja Boy branded versions of the consoles sell for $90 and $60 respectively on Amazon, although Alibaba has them for even cheaper, as Waypoint notes.
"Honestly, I just think that when you’re coming out with a new product you’re gonna be criticized," Soulja Boy said. "You have to deal with criticism, but I think that once people actually get this product in their hands and get to review it themselves, personally, I think it’ll be a different outcome"
As for the legalities of the consoles? "Honestly, I feel that everything is 100% legit and there will be no reason for any legal ramifications or anything like that," he explained. "Honestly, I don’t have any worries at all, any concerns, because everything we’re doing is legit. It’s been researched. Everything has been basically confirmed that it’s a green light and we’re good. It’s partly the people from the outside looking in, that aren’t understanding the type of deals that were made behind the scenes that are worried."
Earlier this year, Nintendo sued two big sites offering downloads of old NES and SNES games, which means they could be targeting Soulja Boy next if his consoles do indeed come with Nintendo games pre-installed.
