As a seasoned retro gaming enthusiast who’s spent countless hours (and a pretty penny) hunting down classic cartridges and consoles from my childhood, I can’t help but feel a mix of emotions reading about this bust in Italy. On one hand, it’s fantastic to see the authorities cracking down on these counterfeit operations that have been flooding the market with subpar imitations.
The Italian Financial Police announced they’ve dismantled an operation specializing in the import of pirated vintage video game consoles from China. As reported by Italian officials, these fake gaming devices were loaded with countless classic video games from the 1980s and 1990s.
12,000 video game consoles, containing over 47 million unlawfully stored pirated games, were confiscated by the economic crime unit of Turin’s financial police, with an estimated worth of over 47.5 million euros ($52.5 million), according to Alessandro Langella, who heads this unit (AFP was informed by TechXplore).
It’s said that popular games such as Mario Bros. and Street Fighter came pre-installed on these consoles, which were allegedly copies of Nintendo, Sega, and Atari systems. Initially imported into Italy, these consoles didn’t pass European technical and safety checks, leading to police scrutiny of the group importing them. Eventually, nine individuals were apprehended for their involvement in this activity, and they could potentially spend up to eight years behind bars due to charges related to trading counterfeit goods.
In recent times, there’s been a significant surge in the popularity of classic video gaming. With collecting at an unprecedented peak, a sizable underground market for counterfeit video game cartridges and consoles has emerged over the years. These phony cartridges are becoming harder and harder to distinguish from the genuine articles. However, there are numerous online resources and communities that offer advice on how to steer clear of purchasing a fake game or system unknowingly.
In one notable example of the counterfeit gaming market, two hackers participated in an attempt to build a counterfeit Xbox One using stolen data, but they were eventually caught and they pleaded guilty. Back in 2011, Atari accused distributor Tommo of importing bootleg versions of its Flashback 2 plug-and-play console, and for a more recent digital-only example, fake Helldivers 2 game pages appeared on Steam shortly after the game launched to commercial success.
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2024-09-13 18:38