Including the ROMs is definitely something that is going to get you in trouble. It is also the selling point. Seems like another one of those situations where dropping shipping to individual users makes it easier to skirt customs inspections vs containers coming into ports. This is a such a huge loophole that I see no way of preventing it.
scblock · 11h ago
The ROMs should not be included but they almost all do it. The main exceptions are some of the pricier android-based handhelds. They market with things like "X,000 games" rather than on the capability to emulate.
If an end user receives one of these handheld machines and loads it up themselves then the choice of sourcing ROMs is entirely on them. They could use their own SNES cart rips and Playstation disk images and it would conceptually be no different than loading MP3s from CDs onto an iPod. Or they could make the conscious choice to pirate. And that I have no problem with. We have agency and can make our own choices.
But it's pretty sketchy to be selling ROMs for money. And you'll find them baked into the system images published by the vendors (which is why some firmware updates are 50+ GiB, ridiculous). I think it's a bad practice but doesn't seem to be changing.
p0w3n3d · 9h ago
I hope I can see someday sega selling their 20yo ROMs for bearable prices...
duxup · 11h ago
"promoting" and "reporting on" seem like potentially the same thing. That seems like a legally dangerous area to have crossover as far as just the ability to talk about or have news about these topics.
If an end user receives one of these handheld machines and loads it up themselves then the choice of sourcing ROMs is entirely on them. They could use their own SNES cart rips and Playstation disk images and it would conceptually be no different than loading MP3s from CDs onto an iPod. Or they could make the conscious choice to pirate. And that I have no problem with. We have agency and can make our own choices.
But it's pretty sketchy to be selling ROMs for money. And you'll find them baked into the system images published by the vendors (which is why some firmware updates are 50+ GiB, ridiculous). I think it's a bad practice but doesn't seem to be changing.