One of the weirder stories to pop up during 2018 was the recent Soulja Boy saga, in which the rapper decided to try his hand at flogging knock-off game consoles which came pre-loaded with hundreds of unlicensed ROMs. Originally, this business venture comprised of just two different machines, but this soon expanded to include the 'SouljaBoy Mini' - a remodelling of an already-existing Game Boy clone.
Well, you may be surprised (or not surprised at all) to learn that Soulja Boy has now taken down all product pages for the consoles. Not much has been said on the matter in any official capacity, but the rapper's tweet below suggests that some form of legal action has likely taken place. Nintendo has always been incredibly protective of its IP, and several other game publishers would also have been affected by Soulja Boy's products; it's easy to imagine that at least one company would step forward and take action.
In an interesting turn of events, though, a website under the name 'SouljaGame' now redirects visitors to Nintendo's very own 3DS store. You can try it for yourself - simply visit http://souljagame.com/ and enjoy looking through some great 3DS and 2DS bundles. Whether this site was originally registered by Soulja Boy or just a trolling stranger is currently unclear, but it does provide us with a rather comical end to the story nonetheless.
And so, the moral of the story here is that stealing other people's work and selling it off as your own to make a profit is rather frowned upon. Who knew?
[source cogconnected.com]
Comments (100)
Not a surprise. But it was fun (to laugh at) while it lasted.
@Quarth I laughed. This was enjoyable.
Nintendo sure did Superman dat ho
Before this story, I hadn't heard about this guy since I was in high school. I had assumed he either overdosed and died, or took his wealth and retired to some remote island nation.
Never heard of him before, and I'm sure I never will again
Souljaboy sold ya boy so Nintendo sued ya boy.
@SonicMos publicity of course. He knew this was going to happen. So free publicity for him.
@Mario_maniac award for best comment goes to YOUUUU.
What a complete idiot. Looks even worse as he was giving it the big un a few days before on Twitter
The moral of the story is that entertainers not necessarily make good entrepreneurs and people in general have a very skewed view of the video games market.
“And so, the moral of the story here is that stealing other people's work and selling it off as your own to make a profit is rather frowned upon. Who knew?“
Bit hypocritical coming from this site ain’t it? /s
Nintendo, tell ‘em...?
Watch me crank dat lawsuitboy.
Uh .. who knew it would happen
To "boss up" means to raise your game and act like a leader, so presumably this means he's going to give it another crack in 2019. Maybe they'd let him re-release the Virtual Boy?
He’s done well with all the free publicity. All this was a publicity stunt and he benefitted
I must admit that I have not heard this gentleman’s music. I only know him as that bloke who Sold a substandard console with a load of pirated games on it.
So he may lose all of his money and get sent to prison, but I suppose he’s had another 15 minutes of fame that might get him on Celebrity Storage Hunters or something....
@1UP_MARIO Agreed. Like @Heavyarms55 I also though he was irrelevant. I mean, he was in Dance Central, but that was awhile ago. It was super funny that he even tweeted he wouldn’t get sued 😂
I hope Nintendo take him to the cleaners.
They're going to need a hell of a lot of bleach to get those hideous tattoos out.
What a Poop Fool....
How so? Didn't he publicly boast he wasn't afraid of Nintendo or anyone else?
What a shocking turn of events indeed.
@Triple-Dragon I hope you're being sarcastic
I still have no clue who this guy is.
Never even heard of this guy.
@Pod
Me either
And the award for "trainwreck everybody saw coming but the one selling it didn't" goes to....
I have never heard of him but his tactic of appropriating IP for his use to gain profit is unfortunately a common practice in the music and other industries.
@Triple-Dragon While I concede that, he did pull the consoles which where available at the souljawatch.com
Soldier Boy and Mike Kennedy should team up. Knock off Coleco Chameleon coming soon!
@Triple-Dragon Again, I concede that. I guess the writer of the article fall for it and did not do his due dilligence.
For however much I sometimes like the idea of being sort of famous, this guy makes me feel happy to be me.
@Triple-Dragon Oh no. So that means the whole thing is fake? Is that what 'fake news' means? Is Soulja Boy even real? Or was it a conspiracy design to confuse the masses?
Inaccurate fact that is not related to the actual subject of the story doesn't make something 'fake news'
@locky-mavo Sarcasm, anyone?
I guess now they can be called rare collectors items...? /s
@Rafke
Right, so we only talk about him because some PR dude asked to use his name with some knockoff game system?
@Triple-Dragon There is scant evidence available at this stage to say where souljagame.com went to previously, though both domains were registered within 2 days of each other via Godaddy (watch on the 3rd and game on the 5th). They have whois privacy on, which does not help with determining the owner, though them being registered so close together and via the same registrar does surely increase the likelihood of them both being his.
In any case, it does make sense that Nintendo would only take control of the game version, as "souljagame" was deliberately being pushed by him as being associated with Nintendo and other big names, so it stands to reason that they would act to stop this. Souljawatch, on the other hand, is much more generic and it may very well be that simply removing the products from that site was enough.
So I would ask if you have evidence yourself that souljagame.com was neither registered by him, nor was it previously set to redirect to souljawatch.com?
Man, I remember this dude was pretty big back in 2006 or 07 with that 1 song, Crank That. I heard at one point he was gonna get his own cartoon. Lol
Nintendo probably just told him to keep it discreet but to take it all down. They didn't want the PR misstep of making it look like they were beating up a moron.
"No publicity is bad publicity" and all that.
Everyone thinking he's somehow regretting this or that this was just a dumb move on his part is totally and utterly missing the point.
This was a very smart move on his part.
He's still an a-hole for abusing his more gullible customers as far as I'm concerned--but he ain't daft.
@Mario_maniac That comment was just perfection!
Well I mean come on, dude... jeeeez
I don't understand, so theft is wrong now?
Weird scenario....shouldn’t he create more music instead?? Not that I’m a fan though...
@Dezzy
Lol!! Right. And besides, it's hard to sue someone who is actually broke.
I wonder how many of these consoles are actually out there, lol
@8itmap_k1d
I have to disagree with you. To "boss up" is to watch a 24-hour marathon of "Who's the Boss?" Soulja boy needs the wise words of Tony Danza to help give him guidance and direction through these troubling times.
What a piece of garbage he is. You must have a very, very low IQ to support that dude.
@sanderev I highly doubt this will be considered "free" publicity. More than likely he's settling with Nintendo and will be paying them millions if I had to guess on top of handing over this domain to Nintendo.
I believe he took the money and ran. He made his fair share of the profit from Chinese vendors and now he knew they are on to him so it's good that he finally bail before things get ugly.
Truly the end of an era. I expect that, in a decade or so, internet forums will be dominated by posters reminiscing over the Christmas that they found a Soulja Boy under their tree, and the Soulja Boys will be regarded in a light not dissimilar to the Sega consoles of old.
Also, I hate how negative everyone online was about these consoles. Console wars are for immature middle schoolers. Grow up and let people enjoy what they want.
Ignorance on his part.
@Triple-Dragon "Fake news is stating something false, even if it's only a part of an article." That's not the definition of 'fake news'. Not at all. Believe it or not, the use of 'fake news' has existed forever, too. Yellow Journalism, propoganda, misinformation campaign; it's documented as far back as the 13 century BC by egyptian leaders.
Stating that a page now goes to a different place than it used to definitely doesn't seem like a misinformation campaign designed to affect the military, public perception, finances, or reputation of an opposing viewpoint, now does it?
It's also disingenuous to say that because you state both '1 + 1 = 2 and all grass is purple', everything you say forward is neither true nor false. That's a scenario made that doesn't even make sense.
@Bunkerneath Not even a Talented rapper. go fade back into obscurity Soulja Boy!
@shonenjump86 You confuse him with MC Hammer! ( who did get his own cartoon show)
@SethNintendo You're being a little too hard on the younger gen. This guy is a one-hit wonder, and I doubt that most young people would even remember his name if he didn't constantly repeat it in that song.
tl;dr No, he doesn't have the talent of the artists you mentioned, nor does the younger gen care that much about him.
@khululy I’m not confusing him with anybody. It was just a rumor that Soulja was gonna get a cartoon during his small run he had. It never happened, thankfully
Good, now he can fade back into obscurity where he belongs.
I hate modern "music".
He did this to get publicity, which he did. For years, people had no idea where the heck Soulja went, now he's getting more attention than ever.
Tbh Until this business, I hadn't heard of this guy beyond a certain song that most readers here know of. So...more publicity, I guess?
(Normally this is where I'd insert a pun, but I've been beaten to it. )
Some people seem to think this was all to his benefit as at least he got some publicity out of it. Nonsense. If the age of social media has taught us anything, it's that, "There's no such thing as bad publicity," is a lie.
But maybe I'm wrong and a washed up rapper will somehow turn almost getting sued by Nintendo into a major comeback. I admit I don't know enough about street cred to calculate how much trying to sell knockoff chinese consoles for the same price as the real thing gets you.
@SethNintendo The guy is obviously running a business, and this was a very savvy move in terms of getting him some real easy cash off rabid and dumb fans and free publicity for himself and that business, which will no doubt about it equate to more than whatever he has to pay back to Nintendo, if anything, for doing what he did. All round he wins.
I think it's important to mention that Soulja Boy never used the souljagame.com domain. He uses souljawatch.com. Someone out there took control of the souljagame domain and made it redirect as a joke. Nintendo would never do something like that.
B-but, he said that nobody was going to do anything, right?
@SonicMos Even worse, he called everyone who exposed him nerds and various homophobic slurs. He even posted a screenshot of Smash Ultimate with his Mii fighting Reggie and six lawyers. Seriously.
@impurekind I’m not so sure. He mostly became a joke more than anything.
@Zeraki Hes really not modern. He’s been gone for a decade.
@SethNintendo I’m not sure anybody did respect him though. He had one hit that was divisive for its time and doesn’t bring back fond memories for anyone.
@MrGawain "Celebrity Storage Hunters", man I'm absolutely dying over this.
"NiNtEnD0 AiN't G0n d0. I'm jUsT a b0y WiTh a DrEaM"
Pfft, what a washed-up idiot. He got what was coming to him, and him thinking otherwise was even dumber of him.
I thought he said Nintendo couldn't touch him? LOL
Nintendo Lawyers have leveled up again!
@SonicMos Very.
I hope he takes another crack at it. Actually the Fuze console would have been a great starting point had he
1) Nixed all the ROMs
2) Changed the UI with his branding
3) lower that damn price. 400 is horrible for a Tegra K1, we specially when I can get an X1 for 140-300 (Shield TV and Switch). At 99-129 it would have sold a lot better.
If the man dreams of starting his own console then let him try to achieve that dream. His problem was that he went about it the wrong way.
Proof that wealth doesn't buy class.
@Shugo I was just about to post the same. When you do a Whois for that domain (https://www.whois.com/whois/souljagame.com) it was registered on 2018-12-05.
I ain’t afraid of Nintendo.... (Reggie appears). Yes daddy, I’ll redirect to the 3ds site, anything you want..
it appears that Nintendo did win the lawsuit, I haven't heard of that guy. does he sell bootleg consoles or something like that?
Looks like the Nintendo ninjas finally got him. I wonder what took them so long?
Sooo are people here only ok with ip/trademark theft when it's stuff they like?
That guy?! I thought he died?!
@Spectra Or your Switch or 3DS. Takes about 10 minutes to get emulators working on Switch.
@NIN10DOXD Yet he's almost certainly the one laughing all the way to the bank.
Every Nintendo focused YouTuber like RGT 85, PlayerEssence and SpawnWave is talking about Soulja Boys failed consoles and how he got punished by big daddy N.
@impurekind If he actually made that much money. Besides he was already in debt.
Hahahaha thats funny
Nintendo: That'll be $15 billion please.
@Triple-Dragon I concede the point. Perhaps he is just too dumb to register other domains that are intrinsic to his brand and someone did it to troll him at an early stage. I do not have an explanation as to why they would take control of it so early, whilst allowing sale of the offending items to continue.
Shame. It was funnier to think that Nintendo did it. Though it would also have been amusing if whoever did it was more open about it.
I do not think the redirect to the 3DS page in itself is cause for suspicion though.
@locky-mavo I dont think you know how sarcasm works 😂
@Triple-Dragon Still though, if he tries to establish a brand called "Souljagame", the sensible thing to do is to register that domain. By all means continue to use the watch version as the primary domain but either redirect the game version to it or at least secure it to stop exactly this from happening.
I am not clear on the precise timeline but it seems that Souljagame must have been a thing at least as early as the 5th. It is a bit of a random one for someone to register just in case.
I agree regarding taking it down and I suppose should have known better myself, as my own line of work is kind of related. I guess it was just too easy to get caught up in the hilarity of the situation.
"I had to Boss up".
Which means what? Sorry..I am not very at one with the rapper way of speaking. The way he says it is like he owns the situation? You had no choice Soulja Boy!
Throw him in jail...
@locky-mavo What, you mean all of the copy-pasted clickbait articles that have zero research done to check their sources and typos galore in the few parts that aren't
@Mana_Knight I didn't either. had to look it up. Long story short, it means he had to pay up.
@Varelius Ah, thanks dude Haha!
I've got soul, but I'm not a lawyer.
@RedMageLanakyn Ha! Though I was more taking a dig at NL articles that "promote" Nintendo IP fan-games, ROM hacks and Mods.😉
@fafonio Sarcasm: the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
I want all my fellow black men around the world to succeed in their business. But Souljaboys shenanigans really makes me wishes for him to get broke and get a taste of the REAL world.
He's getting off too easy. He should be ordered to donate all the money he scammed to a good cause.
hahahahaahahahahah what on earth did he THINK was going to happen? I agree with the he got off to easy comments from above. I mean at least have to give a public apology or something. Maybe if he tries to 'make' a console again the future he will do it the legit way. Even if it is just another thing that plays roms...just without the roms.
How exactly is this "bossing up"?
@Mario_maniac
LOL!
Oh, oh, oh, Ma boy...Lol!
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