Retro gaming handhelds in crisis as US government considers clampdown – could be labelled as "superfakes" and banned

The sale of retro gaming handhelds in the US could be impacted by a filing sent to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. This could result in bans, restrictions and the removal of included games.

Each year, the USTR takes nominations for companies and entities to be added to the US government's "notorious markets" list. This includes sites renowned for piracy and trademark counterfeiting.

While the list doesn't effectively ban products or trading as such, it can be used as evidence to block URLs at an ISP level, or barriers to the import or sale of items from listed firms.

This year's list could include Anbernic and other sites that sell retro gaming handhelds, after it they were nominated for inclusion by the Electronic Software Association (ESA).

According to TorrentFreak. the ESA has highlighted handhelds that come preloaded with thousands of unlicensed games (or bundled microSD cards). It's not the hardware that's an issue per se, even though they contain emulators that enable the play of pirated content, but the act of including the games.

Anbernic makes a wide array of retro gaming handhelds in all shapes and sizes, many of which are great for emulation. However, it also offers bundles including microSD cards containing many gigabytes of games.

If accepted onto the list it opens a large can of worms for the retro gaming market. You only need to scan through the handhelds on Amazon, either in the US or UK, to see how many offer 20,000+ preloaded games. The legality of them is highly dubious.

And while the notorious markets list is a US endeavour, there's every likelihood other regions will consider their own stance on the matter.

Personally, I have my own truncated rom selection that I use with my handhelds, favouring to buy the hardware without included games. However, the appeal of a Game Boy style device with almost every game from the 8-bit, 16-bit and up to original PlayStation eras has proved extremely attractive over the years.

In addition, Anbernic has already withdrawn from shipping directly to the US, in response to Trump's import tariffs, so we might not see much change there.

Still, with the ongoing RAM and components crisis that's grossly inflating prices, it seems that the retro gaming community is facing yet another threat right now.

Maybe it's time to buy an Evercade Nexus (which is out later this month) and play the fully licensed cartridges in the range. It'll make life much more simple.