Retro Reviewer Faces Potential Jail Time as Italian Authorities Investigate for Promoting Anbernic Handheld Consoles

Okay, so here’s this wild tale—picture this: an Italian dude named Francesco Salicini, a hardcore content creator on YouTube. He runs this channel called Once Were Nerd. Sounds nostalgic, right? Anyway, he’s somehow gotten himself tangled up with the law. Why? Folks claim he’s, uh, “advertising” piracy. Well, kind of. See, he reviews these Anbernic game consoles on his channel. They’re these retro, handheld gaming devices, and guess what? They come packed with hundreds of copyrighted ROMs for Nintendo and Sony games. Yeah, it’s a whole thing.

But Francesco swears up and down that he’s just checking out the hardware. No company’s slipping him cash under the table or anything. He even skipped out on adding those sneaky affiliate links! You know, the ones everyone throws in nowadays.

So, here’s where it gets even more intense: he’s facing allegations under Italy’s Article 171 ter of Copyright Law. If this blows up, we’re talking up to €15,000 in fines and maybe three years in prison. Yikes. While this investigation drags on—apparently, these things can take six months—he could even lose his channel. And come on, wouldn’t that just add insult to injury without a guilty verdict? Crazy stuff.

Now, there’s some buzz about who’s behind this mess. Nintendo, with its notorious reputation for stomping on anything that messes with its copyrights, could be involved. They’ve been ruthless, shutting down thousands of emulators left and right. It’s like a giant vs. the little guys in this endless game of legal chess.

And what’s the real beef here? It’s the classic clash of keeping gaming history alive versus mega corporations wanting all the control. Older games and systems are dying out, right? So, without emulators, all this fantastic gaming history could just vanish. Talk about a bummer.

Anyway, if you’re into all this gaming drama, maybe you can keep tabs on Tom’s Hardware. They like to dish out the latest news and reviews to keep people in the loop. Who knows what will happen next?