Soulja Boy is as boisterous a rapper as they come, but he's recently made an astonishing claim: in a recent interview, he says that Nintendo and Google have offered to buy the company behind the latest iteration of his SouljaGame console.
Those of you who haven't been following this crazy situation over the last few years may be completely puzzled, so I'll do my best to explain. DeAndre Cortez "Soulja Boy" Way is a rapper who exploded on the rap scene in the late 2000s with his smash hit "Crank That." It was so popular, in fact, that he makes the justifiable claim that he went viral before the concept of "going viral" was well-understood in popular culture.
As with many other rappers, Soulja Boy is no stranger to selling branded merchandise. One of his more recent endeavors, however, has been to step into the gaming space and attempt to sell his own console.
His efforts to sell a console thus far haven't exactly gone well. His first venture in 2018 was to sell a pair of Chinese-made consoles that came loaded with hundreds of game ROMs; he repeated the attempt in early 2019. Some of these consoles had Nintendo ROMs, and you probably already know where this is going: he pulled all of his consoles from sale following unspecified legal concerns raised by Nintendo.
Undeterred, the viral rapper and entrepreneur recently announced yet another attempt to sell a similar console earlier this year. The Instagram post showing a similar console as his previous ones was now removed, but he's actually come out with something entirely different this time — and he's made the somewhat surprising claim that Nintendo and Google have expressed interest in buying his company.
Nintendo and Google 'Already in Talks' to buy SouljaGame, Soulja Boy Says
As reported on Audacy, Soulja Boy recently had an interview with Hot 93.7's Big Regg and DJ Buck. Naturally, the trio talked about the rap game, but the conversation soon moved to a different kind of game entirely: his new SouljaGame console.
"You always been an entrepreneur, a businessman. What happened to the game console, man?" Big Regg inquired. "I thought that was a clever creation."
"It's a beautiful thing, man," Soulja Boy replied. "I just came out with a new version, too. We just put up 24 billboards all around London. I got Nintendo trying to buy my company right now, we highly-evaluated. It's a board, me and the board — we're multi-millionaires, the whole team of us."
"We already in talks with Nintendo and Google, they're trying to buy the company from me. It ain't even been out for like a month."
"I'm the first rapper to come out with his own video game console, man," he concluded. "It's like, this s*** is bigger than music. [...] This is bigger than anything I ever did in my music career and I made millions off of music. This video game and tech space is a whole different ballgame."
Soulja Boy's New SouljaGame Console Actually Looks Pretty Cool
Whether or not you believe Soulja Boy's claims about a potential acquisition from Nintendo or Google, it looks like he's determined to come out with a new SouljaGame console. I took a look at what's on offer, and what I found was certainly a step above his previous attempts.
The new SouljaGame console is a very real product — and this time, it looks like it will be entirely free of any potential legal issues. The rapper appears to have licensed his name to Go Games, creators of TRDR Pocket, a company that makes Android-based gaming consoles.
That led to the birth of TRDR Pocket 4G - Fireball Red | Soulja Boy Edition, a handheld console that has some pretty neat features. This machine is powered by Android 10, features a touch screen and physical controls, and has a decent set of features to boot:
- Android 10
- 3.5" touchscreen
- 32GB of onboard storage
- Helio P60 processor, featuring:
- an Arm Mali-G72 MP3 GPU clocked at up to 800MHz,
- big.LITTLE architecture pairs four Arm A73 processors at 2.0GHz with four Arm A53 processors at 2.0GHz
- 3 GB of RAM
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 4G capability, 2.4G/5G Wifi
- 4000 mAh battery, up to 8 hours of play
Critically, the new Soulja Boy game console doesn't appear to have any ROMs bundled within. That's always been the big legal sticking point that's got him into trouble before. Now, he's simply selling a licensed Android console with hardware controls. You could, of course, download any number of Android-compatible games to play on it, but that's up to you.
It looks like Soulja Boy has finally figured out a way to sell a gaming console without getting into too much trouble. You can buy the new SouljaGame console direct from TRDR pocket or on Amazon for $199.99 or your regional equivalent.
Disclosure: Amazon works with TechRaptor for affiliate partnership, and TechRaptor earns a small commission off purchases made from some links in this article.
What do you think of the new SouljaGame console? Do you enjoy having physical controls for gaming on a mobile device or do you prefer a touchscreen? Let us know in the comments below!
