If you've owned a device made by Anbernic, PowKiddy or Miyoo then you'll know the drill by now—these emulation handhelds usually come with a cheap MicroSD card packed with poorly-curated ROMs, usually supplied by the store you purchased the device from.
Given that emulation is pretty much the sole reason to buy one of these products, most customers turn a blind eye to this practice, largely because A) many of the ROMs don't even work correctly on the system in question, and B) the standard practice is usually to obtain a higher-quality MicroSD card and source your own games (from your own, ahem, backed-up collection, of course).
This legal grey area has, so far, not been severe enough for IP owners to take notice of, but a new firmware update for Anbernic devices could change all of that.
As reported by Retro Handhelds and HyperPlay RPG, the latest firmware update for the XX range introduces an app which allows users to download games directly to their device over WiFi, even going as far as to properly configure them within the system's UI. It's basically like the eShop, but for IP that Anbernic doesn't own—and no money is changing hands, obviously.
It might seem churlish to be questioning this approach when you consider that these devices ship with a bunch of ROMs in the first instance, but as we've already established, there's a degree of plausible deniability with MicroSD cards; retailers could, if they wished, remove the cards before selling the devices in territories such as North America and Europe, thereby side-stepping the issue.
However, by baking ROM-downloading functionality into the OS itself, Anbernic has made it even clearer that its handhelds are designed almost solely for piracy. In China, this may not represent as much of an issue, but in the West (and Japan), we imagine companies like Nintendo, Sega and Sony will take a somewhat dimmer view of proceedings.
It remains to be seen if this development will have any impact, as, up until now, Anbernic and its rivals have escaped the gaze of the major IP holders. However, it does feel like Anbernic is prodding the tiger somewhat, and that might not be the wisest move.
On the flipside, 'piracy' is the only reason we're able to play a great many games which are no longer available for purchase legally, so perhaps it's not worth getting that worked up about from a consumer's perspective?