Anbernic drops preloaded SD cards after ESA 'superfake' filing

Anbernic has started pulling bundled microSD card options and promotional claims of thousands of included games from its online storefront. The change follows an October 7 filing from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which petitioned to add the retro handheld maker to the government's annual Notorious Markets list.

Thanks to Retro Handhelds and host Zu on the Retro Handhelds YouTube channel for their great reporting and coverage of the topic. While editing his breakdown of the ESA filing, Zu noticed Anbernic modifying its store pages in stages, first marking extra storage bundles as sold out for US warehouse shipping before removing the card tiers from several listings altogether.

From 15,000 games to 16 gigabytes

In Docket USTR-2026-0529, the ESA (which represents major publishers including Nintendo, PlayStation, Microsoft, Epic, EA, and Ubisoft) asked the US government to classify Anbernic as a piracy device manufacturer under a new category called "superfakes." The trade group argued that hardware designed to resemble classic consoles and shipped with SD cards containing thousands of unauthorized ROMs functions as a piracy hub on par with torrent trackers like 1337x and repack sites like FitGirl Repacks.

Anbernic appears to be scrambling to clean up its paper trail. On product pages like the RG35XXSP, buyers previously chose between extra storage tiers that came preloaded with games, even if the page didn't explicitly list the titles. Now, the RG35XXSP listing only offers a single 16GB card option, which is needed to hold the Linux-based stock firmware. Several Android-based handheld listings, including the RG Rotate, have also had their optional microSD bundles stripped out entirely, and the company wiped marketing copy that boasted of 5,000 or 15,000 free games.

It's hard to feel sorry for a company getting caught shipping thousands of pirated ROMs for profit, because Anbernic's hardware is genuinely good enough to stand on its own without the sketchy cards.

The company's upcoming dual-screen handheld, which resembles a Nintendo DS and is expected to launch at an early-bird price of $285, will reportedly ship with no SD cards or preloaded games at all.

Customs checks and terrorist firmware

Being named in a Notorious Markets petition doesn't trigger an immediate ban in the United States. It's an advisory report, and any government action is likely five to six months away. Even then, Anbernic is based in China, placing the company largely outside direct Washington jurisdiction.

The people most likely to feel the squeeze are third-party sellers and individual buyers. At the end of the filing's superfake section, the ESA recommends two enforcement measures that bypass the manufacturer entirely: having customs agents inspect bundled and independently shipped storage media, and suspending repeat sellers and storefronts on platforms like Amazon and eBay. If customs starts opening packages to check microSD slots, import orders from China are going to get messy. Meanwhile, competitors like AISLPC and LITNXT still offer ROM-loaded cards on their storefronts, and I'm curious whether they'll scrub their listings next or wait until storefront bans actually happen.

The ESA filing makes a fair point when it notes that stock firmware on budget handhelds comes from an opaque supply chain with zero security updates. That's a real issue, and it's one reason enthusiasts usually wipe the factory cards immediately to flash community operating systems like muOS or Knulli. Then the trade group goes completely off the rails, warning the government that these SD cards could carry malware from hostile state actors or terrorist organizations.

"Now, stock firmware has been accused of a lot of things in this hobby. Ugly screens, poor navigation, yeah. Terrorism? You telling me that freaking ISIS is writing the stock OS on here?"

If Anbernic permanently drops the cheap, failure-prone microSD cards across all of its warehouses, buyers won't actually lose much of value. Buying an unbundled handheld from a US warehouse, picking up a reliable name-brand card locally, and loading it with legal cartridge dumps or modern homebrew ROMs like Goodboy Galaxy remains the cleanest way to use these machines anyway.