Anbernic faces US Notorious Market List after ESA filing

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has formally recommended that the U.S. Trade Representative add Anbernic, the Chinese retro handheld manufacturer, to the federal government’s annual Notorious Market List. The filing, submitted to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under docket number USTR-2026-0529-0010, alleges that Anbernic’s devices are engineered and marketed specifically to facilitate large-scale copyright infringement of video games from publishers including Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Sega.

The Notorious Market List is a congressionally mandated report published each year by the USTR. It identifies physical and online marketplaces outside the United States that are believed to engage in or enable substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy. Inclusion on the list does not carry automatic legal penalties, but it signals official U.S. government concern and can lead to heightened customs scrutiny, trade sanctions, or pressure on foreign governments to act. The 2025 edition of the report was released in March 2026, and the ESA’s current submission targets the next update cycle.

The ESA characterizes these plug-and-play consoles as 'the functional equivalent of superfakes.'

What the ESA alleges Anbernic is doing

According to the trade body’s filing, Anbernic “normalises hardware-based piracy by delivering illicit catalogues through a polished consumer product.” The core of the complaint is straightforward: Anbernic’s handheld consoles, which are built to emulate retro gaming systems, are routinely shipped with removable microSD cards preloaded with hundreds or thousands of unauthorised copies of copyrighted video games. These copies, the ESA argues, allow purchasers to play titles immediately without any lawful purchase or license, and they bypass technological protection measures that publishers use to control access to or copying of their games.

The ESA characterizes these plug-and-play consoles as “the functional equivalent of superfakes.” Unlike counterfeit physical goods that merely mimic packaging, a single Anbernic device can substitute for lawful purchases across multiple publishers and console generations. The filing notes that “sellers commonly use the illicit library as a key selling point, and the commercial price often reflects this.” Because the same catalogue of thousands of games can be duplicated at negligible marginal cost across large production runs, the business model scales in a way that traditional piracy—which relies on users downloading ROMs individually—does not.

Anbernic markets its devices through branded websites, mainstream online marketplaces such as Amazon and AliExpress, social media channels, and physical electronics markets. The ESA argues that this “combination of professional presentation, enormous embedded catalogues, and mainstream distribution permits piracy to scale as an ordinary consumer purchase.” In effect, the trade body says, the operation shifts the burden of monitoring, investigation, and enforcement onto publishers and the marketplaces that host Anbernic’s listings.

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The broader context: tariffs and supply chain disruptions

This legal escalation comes roughly one year after Anbernic suspended shipments to the United States in response to the implementation of new tariffs on Chinese-manufactured goods. The company’s devices, which typically retail between $50 and $200, were among a wide range of consumer electronics affected by the tariff regime. The suspension was widely interpreted as a temporary measure to reassess pricing and supply chain logistics, but the ESA’s new filing could complicate any return to the U.S. market.

It is also worth noting that Anbernic is far from the only manufacturer of retro handhelds. Competitors such as Miyoo, PowKiddy, and Retroid have similar product lines and face similar allegations. However, Anbernic’s market share and brand recognition make it a particularly visible target. The ESA’s decision to name the company specifically in a federal filing signals a strategic shift in how the video game industry intends to combat hardware-based piracy.

How the Notorious Market List process works

The USTR’s Notorious Market List is not a punitive enforcement action in itself. Rather, it is a public identification tool designed to encourage market operators and foreign governments to take voluntary corrective measures. The list is compiled from submissions by rights holders, trade associations, and stakeholder groups such as the ESA, the Motion Picture Association, and the Recording Industry Association of America. After the USTR reviews the submissions, publishes a preliminary draft for public comment, and then issues a final report.

Entities that appear on the list often face reputational damage, increased scrutiny from customs agencies in multiple countries, and pressure from payment processors and advertising networks. In extreme cases, the USTR can initiate trade actions under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, though that process is rare. For a manufacturing company like Anbernic, inclusion could lead to targeted customs seizures of incoming shipments at U.S. ports, tying up inventory and creating legal costs.

The ESA has asked the USTR to recommend seven specific actions for governments and online marketplaces to take against entities like Anbernic:

• Treat preloaded unauthorised game libraries as core evidence of commercial-scale piracy
• Inspect bundled and separately shipped storage media, including microSD cards and USB drives
• Require sellers to substantiate authorisation for every included game and protected brand
• Suspend repeat sellers and linked storefronts, not merely remove individual product listings
• Preserve seller information, payment records, shipment logs, and advertising data for enforcement purposes
• Improve customs targeting for devices and components associated with preloading operations
• Coordinate enforcement action across manufacturers, exporters, importers, fulfilment providers, and online marketplaces that knowingly facilitate these products

The ESA’s recommended list of targets extends beyond Anbernic. The filing also calls for the inclusion of “cracked game sources, repackers, and linking sites,” “torrent and piracy-coordination markets,” “unauthorised digital goods marketplaces,” and “commercial cheat markets.” Under the digital goods subheading, the ESA specifically names G2A, the European-based online marketplace, noting that “G2A previously represented that it did not permit sales of in-game accounts or items, but the marketplace facilitates account and digital item sales at scale.”

Why this matters for the retro gaming community and the industry

The retro handheld market has exploded in popularity over the past half-decade. Devices like the Anbernic RG35XX series, the Miyoo Mini, and the PowKiddy X55 offer consumers a way to play classic titles from the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, PlayStation 1, and Game Boy Advance on modern hardware with better screens, longer battery life, and ergonomic controls. A significant portion of this demand is driven by legitimate interest in game preservation and nostalgia. However, the vast majority of these devices ship with unauthorized ROMs preloaded, and even when they do not, the community ecosystem depends heavily on downloading copyrighted software that has never been re-released or licensed for digital sale.

The ESA’s filing draws a direct line between the hardware business and copyright infringement: “A single device can substitute for lawful purchases across multiple video game publishers and console generations, divert sales from authorised games, compilations, subscriptions, remasters, and licensed retro hardware.” Publishers like Nintendo have long maintained that emulation itself is legal when the user dumps their own ROMs from legally purchased cartridges, but the commercial sale of devices that circumvent this safeguard is not. Nintendo has successfully sued or threatened legal action against ROM-hosting sites, emulator developers, and hardware sellers in the past, including the high-profile case against LoveROMs and LoveRETRO in 2018.

At the same time, the legal landscape for emulation has been shifting. In 2024, a U.S. court ruled that the Yuzu emulator, used to play Nintendo Switch games on PC, violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by circumventing encryption. That case set a precedent that could have implications for any device or software that facilitates playing games without the publisher’s authorization. The ESA’s current filing extends that logic to custom hardware.

Security, privacy, and safety concerns

Beyond copyright claims, the ESA’s filing also highlights that preloaded “piracy devices “create security, security, privacy, and financial risks,” and “bypass important player and child-safety protections.” The trade body argues that these unregulated devices often lack the content rating systems, parental controls, and online safety features that are standard on official platforms from Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox. Because they run on open-source operating systems or custom firmware, they can also expose users to malware if the preloaded ROM files are tampered with or if the device connects to questionable update servers.

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While the ESA’s primary interest is protecting its members’ intellectual property, these ancillary arguments are designed to build a broader case that the harm extends beyond lost revenue to consumer protection and public safety. The strategy mirrors arguments the entertainment industry has used against unlicensed streaming boxes and Kodi add-ons in the past.

What happens next

The USTR will review the ESA’s filing along with other submissions during the public comment period for the 2026 Notorious Market List. The trade body’s final report is typically published in the first quarter of the following year. If Anbernic is included, the company will face no immediate legal penalties from the U.S. government directly, but the indirect consequences could be severe. Customs officials could begin detaining shipments at ports, and major online marketplaces like Amazon or AliExpress might delist Anbernic’s storefronts to avoid regulatory risk. Payment processors and ad networks, wary of legal liability, might also terminate their relationships.

For Anbernic, the stakes are high. The company has already demonstrated a willingness to suspend operations in the U.S. market due to tariffs, and a Notorious Market designation would make re-entry nearly impossible without fundamentally altering its business model. Realistically changing the business model would require either paying official licensing fees for every ROM preloaded (which is financially prohibitive at scale) or selling only “blank” devices that require users to supply their own games—a move that would drastically reduce the product’s main appeal.

Whether other retro handheld makers will be affected depends on the USTR’s approach. If the final report names Anbernic specifically but not its competitors, those competitors may see a temporary market advantage. However, the ESA’s broad request to include “illicit plug-and-play consoles and handheld devices” as a category suggests that the trade body clearly wants the entire segment to be targeted, leaving the entire market vulnerable. Smaller manufacturers without the resources to challenge the designation may decide to exit the U.S. market first rather than fight.

The retro gaming community now faces a pivotal moment. The era of easily buying a $60 handheld with 10,000 pirated games from a reputable Chinese seller may be drawing to a close. Whether that outcome is seen as a blow to video game preservation or a victory for copyright enforcement depends on the perspective. What is undeniable but the ESA makes clear, and the USTR filing makes the first formal step in what could become a much wider crackdown on a business that has operated in the legal gray area for years.