ESA Pushes for ROM-Loaded Retro Handhelds to Join Notorious Markets List

The Entertainment Software Association has called for stronger action against plug-and-play retro consoles and handhelds that arrive with large libraries of unauthorized games already installed. Its proposal asks U.S. authorities to consider these products for the Notorious Markets List, a mechanism used to identify markets and sellers alleged to facilitate counterfeiting and piracy.

At the center of the debate is a familiar kind of listing: a compact handheld or HDMI game stick, often advertised with hundreds or thousands of classic games stored on a microSD card or internal storage. In the ESA's view, products built around those libraries are not simply inexpensive electronics with questionable extras. They are commercial piracy devices designed to make infringement easy for mainstream buyers.

That core argument will not be controversial to many people who follow the retro hardware market. Sellers routinely use enormous game counts as a headline feature, even when they have no evident authorization to distribute the titles involved. The harder question is whether the language used to describe the problem could sweep far beyond the sellers and operations actually bundling illicit ROM collections.

What the ESA wants targeted

The ESA describes illicit plug-and-play systems as the "functional equivalent of superfakes," a term generally associated with counterfeit products made to appear highly convincing. The association's concern is not limited to rough, anonymous devices sold through obscure storefronts. It argues that these products can resemble normal consumer electronics, with molded cases, color screens, refined menus, retail-style packaging, customer reviews, and listings on major online marketplaces.

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Those presentational details, the ESA argues, can make the underlying infringement more difficult for consumers and rights holders to spot. A buyer may see a polished handheld and assume it is a licensed retro product, while the device's real commercial draw is an included storage card containing a massive unlicensed catalogue.

The association also flags listings and packaging that use protected names, characters, screenshots, logos, and other branding without permission. This is an important distinction. A seller advertising a generic handheld by placing famous game characters on the box, or filling its storefront images with recognizable artwork, is creating a much more direct impression that its product has an official connection to those properties.

In its submission, the ESA says a handheld delivered with an immediately playable selection of pirated games removes the technical barriers that historically kept some consumers away from piracy. The game library becomes the feature being sold, rather than a separate action carried out by an individual user with their own files and software.

That distinction matters in a market where listings frequently emphasize claims such as "20,000 games included," often with little or no explanation of where those files came from or whether they are licensed. It is also a market where the inclusion of a bundled microSD card can obscure responsibility. The hardware may be manufactured by one company, stocked by another, modified by a reseller, and shipped by a marketplace fulfillment operation.

The proposed enforcement measures

The ESA has outlined several steps it believes could help investigators, marketplaces, and customs authorities identify commercial-scale infringement. The recommendations concentrate on preloaded game libraries, the storage media that carry them, repeat seller behavior, and the network of businesses involved in distribution.

• Treat preloaded, unauthorized game catalogues as central evidence of commercial piracy.
• Inspect storage media included with hardware, including media shipped separately from the device.
• Require sellers to demonstrate that they have authorization for included games and protected branding.
• Take action against repeat sellers and connected storefronts rather than removing only individual listings.
• Maintain seller, payment, shipping, and advertising records for potential enforcement.
• Improve customs scrutiny of devices and components linked to preloading operations.
• Coordinate action involving manufacturers, exporters, importers, fulfillment services, and online marketplaces that knowingly enable these sales.

Several of these steps address a genuine practical weakness in marketplace moderation. Removing a single listing can do little if the same operator reappears under a different storefront name with the same product photos, product description, and bundled game card. Looking at payment records, fulfillment relationships, shipment patterns, and linked accounts could make enforcement more meaningful than a cycle of isolated takedowns.

The proposal's focus on separately shipped storage media is also notable. In some cases, sellers may attempt to reduce apparent liability by offering a handheld as one product and then including or dispatching a card loaded with games through another listing or shipment. From the buyer's perspective, the transaction is still effectively a ready-to-play piracy package.

Why established handheld brands could be caught in the crossfire

The controversy lies in how easily descriptions of polished, mass-market-looking devices can overlap with legitimate emulation hardware. Companies such as Anbernic, Retroid, Ayaneo, and Ayn sell handheld PCs or Android-based portable devices that can run emulators, but the capacity to run emulation software is not itself proof that a device includes unauthorized games or is marketed as a piracy product.

Emulation has many lawful uses. Players can create backups where permitted, use homebrew software, run public-domain games, develop and test software, or play titles for which they hold appropriate rights. Hardware capable of running emulators is also not unique to the retro handheld space. PCs, smartphones, tablets, and mainstream portable computers can all be configured to run emulation applications.

This does not erase the piracy issue surrounding preloaded handhelds. It does mean enforcement needs to be precise. A device's screen size, its handheld form factor, or even a resemblance to a current portable console does not establish that it has been sold with infringing files. The conduct that most clearly demands attention is the commercial sale and promotion of unauthorized libraries, particularly when the seller makes those libraries a key reason to buy.

Anbernic is specifically named in the ESA's discussion, with the association alleging that the company normalizes hardware-based piracy through polished consumer products and illicit catalogues. Yet an important complication is that a manufacturer may not be the entity adding ROMs to a device before it reaches a customer. Marketplace resellers can take otherwise bare hardware, pair it with a loaded card, and advertise the package using copyrighted game imagery and inflated game totals.

If that distinction is not maintained, a manufacturer could face reputational or commercial damage because unrelated sellers altered the package after the hardware left the manufacturer's control. The result would be a broad penalty on a device category rather than a focused response to businesses demonstrably distributing infringing content.

Hardware, software, and the seller's role

The strongest part of the ESA's case is its attention to the transaction itself. A bare handheld capable of playing locally supplied software is one thing. A listing promising a huge, ready-to-use library of commercial games is another. The latter is not merely selling versatile hardware; it is monetizing access to works that the seller may have no right to copy or distribute.

That is why online marketplaces have an especially important role. Amazon, AliExpress, and similar platforms can host vast numbers of third-party sellers, and a listing may look legitimate at a glance because it is placed alongside ordinary consumer products. Marketplace policies that review game-count claims, copyrighted promotional images, included storage cards, repeat accounts, and seller relationships would target the commercial behavior at issue more directly than a blanket judgment against every emulation-capable handheld.

There is also a consumer-protection angle. Cheap bundled cards are often unreliable, poorly organized, and filled with duplicates, mislabeled files, broken entries, or games that do not work properly. Buyers may be attracted by a spectacular library count, only to receive a low-quality storage card and software package with no meaningful support. A crackdown on deceptive and infringing bundles could therefore protect customers as well as rights holders.

A narrow approach would have the clearest purpose

The Notorious Markets List is intended to draw attention to significant piracy and counterfeiting concerns, so inclusion can carry consequences even when it is not itself a direct legal ruling. That makes careful targeting essential. The most defensible target is the ecosystem of sellers and operations that preinstall unauthorized games, deploy protected branding without permission, and repeatedly market those bundles as turnkey entertainment products.

A broader approach that treats all emulation handhelds as suspicious would risk confusing a technical capability with infringing conduct. It could create collateral damage for hardware makers, independent developers, legitimate retro enthusiasts, and consumers who use these devices for lawful software. It may also leave the most adaptable bad actors untouched if they simply switch brand names, storefronts, or physical shells while continuing the same ROM-loading operation.

The ESA's recommendations contain tools that could identify those bad actors more effectively, particularly the emphasis on connected sellers, storage media, shipping records, and marketplace accountability. The challenge will be applying them to the people packaging and promoting piracy rather than indiscriminately to every company making a portable device capable of emulation.

For retro players, the outcome matters beyond a single brand or storefront. Compact emulation-focused hardware has become a popular way to explore homebrew, older personal collections, and legally obtained retro software on the go. At the same time, the widespread sale of devices with unlicensed libraries has made the category an easy target. Any enforcement effort that follows should draw a firm line around preloaded piracy while recognizing that hardware alone is not the infringement.