News story in today's paper here

[RJ]

I guess this belongs here, as the games in the article are NES...

A 28 year old Miami man has been sentenced to 5 years in prison & will have to run ads in mall magazines to tell the public how he illegally sold knockoff video games at Mall of America [Bloomington MN] kiosks.

Yonathan Cohen, an owner of Perfect Deal LLC of Miami, sold a video game console known as Power Player, which contained 46 copyrighted videogame titles belonging primarily to Nintendo or its licensees. [Last] December, the FBI recovered 1,800 Power Player units from the Perfect Deal kiosks at the Mall & at storage facilities Cohen rented in Richfield [MN].

The consoles, purchased wholesale at $7-9 each, sold for $30-70 each.

At Cohen's sentencing Friday in St Paul, US District Judge Joan Ericksen determined that Cohen's scam cost software companies more than $9.1 million.

As part of a plea agreement, Cohen agreed to place full-page ads in mall trade magazines describing his conviction & emphasizing that copyright infringement is a criminal offense.

-Beth Silver


I hope to get one of those Mall trade mags & pass the info along...

[Graham Mitchell]

That dirtbag.

I remember when these were for sale at Gurnee Mills. There were huge crowds around the kiosk. I got in and saw that they were playing Tengen Tetris and I knew something was up. I loaded one up to play Contra and all the copyright info had been completely erased from the title screen. The controllers sucked, too. They were old N64 controllers with their insides replaced, and the buttons and D-pad were all replaced with really hard plastic and it didn't work so well. Getting diagonals was impossible.

Personally, I think it's funny that this guy is gonna fry now because it was such a poorly executed scam. Anybody that had any experience with a NES would have known that unit was a bootleg. Shameless.

[Xexyz]

Yeah, some Chineese guy was selling these things at a recent electronics & clothing clearence expo at the NY fairgrounds. Now I see someone selling them at the flea market at $50 a pop...

I hope he gets busted because I won't be going to the flea again until next spring.

On a side note: Someone was arrested at my flea market about 3-4 weeks ago for selling fake Proda, Gucci, and other popular brand name purses.

[roushimsx]

I never even knew these bootleg units were available in the US until a year or so ago when I saw some for sale at a local mall. It's funny...I like picking up famiclones when i'm overseas for the novelty factor but it turns my stomach when i see people buying them here in the US when the real deal is so readilly available :(

Some of them do make for fun little projects though (either hooking up a new cart slot or enabling the cart slot already in them)

[johno590]

That sucks for that guy. I was at the mall last week and saw one of those playing on a tv. I thought it was strange that it was a N64 controller and that the little kid was playing Super Mario Bros.

Guess the idiot gets what he deserves.

[dan2357]

You know why this person is writing this, Its because she’s pissed off that she got ripped off on one of these units.
She was probably shopping one day, saw it bought it for her kid, or such and spent $50 on it. Then while vacationing in FL. she saw the same unit in a Flea Market for $14.99 and got pissed. (Maybe)
Seriously though, they really need to stop making examples of people in these law suits. Do you really think he was the only shop in the Mall selling a famiclone? I doubt it. These things (famiclones) are like cockroaches there are millions of them out there (give or take a few 100,000's)
Its like the war on drugs, Lets go after the 17yr kid on the corner just selling to make a few bucks, Instead of going after the Distributor or manufacture. This one guy had 1,800 of them do they think he made them in his basement?
What I wonder though is How much money will the software companies get? All the fines he is going to have to pay how much are they giving to them? My bet none. This is almost as bad as a class action suit where at the end of the day the lawyers walk away with $100,000's of dollars, and the people involved in the case end up with a $2 off coupon on there next purchase of $100 or more.
ok rant done

[Zing]

This wasn't Joe Blow selling a handful of units at his garage sale. This guy had 1800 units. That's like the difference between a guy with a $20 sack of weed selling joints at the local bowling alley and one with five bricks in the trunk of his car.

[MASTERWEEDO]

i remember those at gurnee mills too, they sucked. i didnt even look twice after i tried it.

as to the guy with a dub sack sellin j's an the dude with the bricks.....who's to say it isnt the same guy like a week ir 2 after he unloaded the bricks? and the guy with the bricks is responsible for the guy with the dub sack.

[RJ]

You know why this person is writing this, Its because she’s pissed off that she got ripped off on one of these units.
She was probably shopping one day, saw it bought it for her kid, or such and spent $50 on it. Then while vacationing in FL. she saw the same unit in a Flea Market for $14.99 and got pissed. (Maybe)


Heh- Im pretty sure you were joking, but seriously, she's a reporter.

I actually did play one of these when at the Mall one time. Hell, it was probably that Cohen guy I spoke to! I noticed the gun for the shooting games was like a kid's cowboy gun, not the Zapper you'd expect, so I knew something was amiss. I thought briefly about getting one right then & there, but it was $50 & my wife'd probably kill me.

[CartCollector]

I've seen one of 'em too. I considered buying one at $20 just as something interesting to add to my collection. I asked the attendant about the price, and he tells me $50. $50. Yes, a POS Famiclone that probably cost $5 to make he's selling for $50.

If you haven't guessed already, I didn't buy one.

[christhegamer]

Same thing here: some buttheads were selling "286-games-in-one" units down at east towne mall. What really sucks is that they're still selling them, and the police have done nothing about it; so all these poor people are [still] getting conned into buying "super joys" or "polystations" by some Spanishese guy named Tom. :angry: It's pretty sad, actually ...:(

[Ed Oscuro]

I actually saw a Famiclone stand at my local mall yesterday. Don't really feel like getting into it, but egh...

[mills]

I visited a stand at the mall today selling units shaped like playstation with apparently "57,000 games in one!" I played it and there are MAYBE 50 unique games. The guy wouldn't leave me alone either. "These are the game of nostalgia, the old game you know! I give you deal for only $49.99" Ahhh no thanks. "OK then I give you BEST deal!" What's that? "Well come here I sh-" at this point I WALKED AWAY, while he was still talking to me.hahahahahaha.

[jdc]

Yeah, we had them in our mall here in Ontario, Canada too......and I live in a small city.

[Lord_Magus]

I'd like to know how the prosecutors calculated a loss of "$9.1 million for software companies"...? :roll:

[dan2357]

Theres my point. These things are every where, many different types are out there. Arresting one guy selling them is not going to stop it.
He had so many because 1- They are a great money maker and 2- Like everything else, the more you buy the cheaper they are.

How many different chips are used in the differently manufactured ones? Meanning are all the games on an eprom? are all these proms comming from the same manufactor? Why not go after the companies with the orders of 50,000 chips at a time.

Cablevision (cable company in these parts) a few years back went after evey person that every bought a descrambling chip from different vedors. If you were in the records of the company that sold the chips you were contacted by cablevisions lawyers.

end rant.

[SlayerX]

If I can find an article like this on the internet, I will print it off and give it to the local dealer in our mall that has the N64/Genesis/Joystick combo like this. Lets see his face, and see how long he stays.

[Damaramu]

Yup, they're everywhere, like roaches.

I remember seeing a kiosk at the Galleria Mall here in Houston. They're biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen (as far as knock-offs go).

I wonder if they're still there? :hmm: