Even though he insisted on social media that what he was selling was “legit,” it appears that rapper Soulja Boy has reversed course when it comes to getting into the video game console-selling business.
Earlier in December, the superstar got into hot water when he began selling Alibaba-produced consoles on his SouljaWatch website, loaded with games powered by illegal emulators. It certainly got the attention of Nintendo, who threatened to sue him over selling them.
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But oh, how the tables have turned. A new report from MP1st suggests that the consoles are now removed from his site and aren’t likely to return.
Soulja Boy originally offered various consoles, as well as a handheld system, featuring “thousands” of emulated games. He bumped up their price as well and insisted that they were legitimate Soulja Boy products- even though many flamed him on social media when they were clearly aware that wasn’t the case.
When it came to the removal of the systems, Soulja Boy simply said on Twitter, “I had to boss up, I didn’t have a choice.”
This follows weeks of messages in which Soulja Boy got extremely frank and brushed off complaints from those indicating that he would be sued by Nintendo, saying things like, “Y’all don’t scare me I’m SOULJA BOY foh” before continuing with comments such as, “If Nintendo was gon do something they would have the first day. My console not going anywhere everything I’m doing is 100 percent legit stay mad and I’ll keep getting richer” and “Nintendo ain’t gon do SH*T”. (These tweets have since been deleted, although the Internet never forgets.)
Now the real question is if Nintendo is going to move forward with its threats. A few of these consoles may have already been sold, with the Soulja Boy loyalists possibly picking them up; so the company could have some legal ground to cover lawsuit-wise. There are other game manufacturers that could get involved as well, depending on what titles were emulated. (The “Soulja consoles” reportedly included a number of emulators, covering the spectrum of classic game consoles.)
For now, though, the Soulja Boy game business is on hold, perhaps permanently. In the meantime, however, he continues to hype his esports initiative, which is set to take off sometime in early 2019. We’ll see what comes of that, and if his now-canned console lineup gets in the way.
