Soulja Boy is selling video game consoles again, and he's already being accused of ripping off an existing handheld: "He does not have permission to rebrand our products and sell them as his own"

Rapper Soulja Boy is back at it, and by "it," I mean selling video game consoles that seem to be rebranded versions of existing best retro handheld contenders. Just like that, all is right in the world.

In case this is all new and confusing to you, Soulja Boy started selling white label Chinese retro emulators under his SouljaGame brand back in 2018. We charitably called them "questionably legal" back then, and it seems the ensuing years have done little to make the 'Crank That' rapper want to appease his critics, despite once facing legal threats from Nintendo and subsequently pulling his SouljaGame consoles from stores.

Over on his official website, you'll see three different retro games consoles, with the newest being the SouljaGame Flip, and boy howdy does it look a lot like the Retroid Pocket Flip 2, just as the SouljaGame X resembles the Retroid Pocket 4. Here's a side-by-side of the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 next to the SouljaGame Flip, according to pictures pulled from each product's respective website.

Image 1 of 2

In case you're zooming in on the above images trying to spot the difference, you can probably stop now. They look pretty much exactly the same, and the specs listed are identical. Both handhelds have 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED screens, SD865 processors, and 8GB of RAM. The only difference, initially, was the price. Soulja Boy's console originally cost more than $400, but he's now taken it down to a comparatively modest ask of $200, which is right about what the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 costs.

The rapper has been shockingly persistent in pursuing his drop-shipped retro games console venture, but the fate of the SouljaGame Flip is questionable at best. Reviews of other SouljaGame consoles are near universally negative, and worse yet, Retroid has issued a statement to RetroDodo blasting what it labeled a rebranded Pocket Flip 2.

"I didn't know about this," the spokesperson said. "This is not any kind of official licensing deal. He does not have permission to rebrand our products and sell them as his own. The Retroid Pocket Flip 2 is patented in the U.S. by ourselves."

Old habits die hard, I suppose.

It might be best to stick with the best retro game consoles we recommend in 2025.