Like it or not, it’s illegal
Many retro gamers like to argue that pirating ROMs is a victimless crime. After all, the games are out of print, the original developers might not even exist anymore, and nobody’s making money from them — right?
Unfortunately, the law doesn’t see it that way. No matter how old or obscure the title, downloading or sharing pirated games is illegal. It doesn’t matter if the game hasn’t been sold commercially in decades or if you’re just trying to revisit your childhood. Copyright law still applies.
Of course, you could argue that these laws should be changed. Most copyright laws are wildly out of touch with the modern digital economy, and game preservation efforts (particularly in Europe) have begun to gain steam.
Handhelds that ship with pre-loaded ROMs are skating on thin legal ice.
16-bit clutter
I suspect some of you reading this aren’t swayed by the legal argument, but there are still reasons to avoid handhelds with pre-loaded ROMs. For starters, the ROMs themselves are typically quite poor.
Devices that advertise “10,000 games” are almost guaranteed to be stuffed with filler. That includes both games that no one in their right mind would want to revisit in 2025, as well as games that simply won’t load. Some are also Chinese language versions of games, which can kill the nostalgia you’re looking for.
One of the great joys of retro gaming is curating your library.
Bad ROMs, worse SD cards
Maybe you’re okay with sifting through mountains of junk ROMs to find that one nostalgic gem. Fine. But what if I told you that all that digital clutter is sitting on a ticking time bomb?
That’s the reality of the cheap microSD cards that ship with these devices. To cut costs, most companies use the cheapest generic cards on the market. These have unacceptably high fail rates, with most lucky to last longer than a few months before they bite the digital dust.
Cheap microSD cards rarely last longer than a few months.
A brighter retro future
The final reason to avoid handhelds packed with pre-loaded games has nothing to do with the games themselves. It’s about the companies behind them.
As a general rule, any brand that uses pirated ROMs as a selling point isn’t exactly going to offer great customer support. In fact, many of these devices aren’t even sold by the companies that design them. Often, they are designed by a company, such as TrimUI or MagicX, then manufactured, published, and sold by a separate company, like AMPOWN.
Your odds are much better buying from companies that don’t ship their devices with games, such as Retroid, AYN, and AYANEO. Those companies are paving the way toward a more legitimate and sustainable future for emulation handhelds.
