Update - May 26 - 10:50am ET: In response to this story, Lenovo has issued the following statement to Tom's Hardware: "The G02 device is produced under a regional brand licensing agreement and is intended solely for the China market. It is not part of Lenovo’s official global product portfolio. Products developed through these regional licensing agreements may differ from Lenovo products sold through Lenovo’s authorized global channels. Lenovo does not authorize the sale of this device outside of China, including third party platforms such as AliExpress or other reseller sites. Any such sales are not conducted or sanctioned by Lenovo or its authorized licensees. Devices officially distributed by Lenovo or its authorized licensees in the China market do not include memory cards or preloaded games. Any software or content found on devices sold outside of authorized channels may have been added by third parties without Lenovo’s knowledge or approval. Any content installed by the user—and any issues that may arise—are the sole responsibility of the user of the device, as explicitly stated in its instruction manual. Lenovo does not condone or authorize the installation or distribution of any unauthorized or infringing content on its devices. Lenovo is currently reviewing reports regarding the sale of devices with preloaded software by third party vendors and will take appropriate action as necessary."
A Lenovo-branded G02 retro handheld launched in China earlier this month, coming in at an affordable $63.56 on AliExpress compared to the thousands you have to pay for the Lenovo Legion Go 2. There were some questions if this was a legitimate Lenovo product or just another hardware manufacturer using the logo of a prominent brand, but a Lenovo employee in the company’s Product and Licensing department reportedly confirmed to Retro Dodo that it was an official, white-labeled device the company intended to sell only in China. More interestingly, they have unearthed that the handheld ships with thousands of copyrighted games, mostly from Nintendo.
“The G02 device is produced through a regional brand licensing agreement meant for the China market only and is not part of Lenovo’s official global product portfolio,” the company told the publication. “As such, products developed through these agreements may differ from Lenovo products sold through authorized channels.”
However, it wasn’t the handheld’s branding that caught Retro Dodo’s attention — instead, it was the fact that it came with thousands of copyrighted titles out of the box, most of them from Nintendo. It’s unclear if these games are licensed at all; after all, Nintendo is famously protective of its intellectual property, and it’s unlikely that it would readily allow a third-party hardware manufacturer to include Nintendo titles. Furthermore, the Japanese company built a reputation as a litigious company, targeting anyone that poses a threat to its IP.
The G02 is just a white-labeled device, meaning that its manufacturer just signed a deal with Lenovo to use its name for marketing purposes. However, the maker of the Legion Go handhelds still approved the regional licensing deal, even though we’re unsure if it reviewed the final product before it went on sale. One possibility is that the factory behind this retro handheld console loaded these ROMs after approval to boost sales, even though its AliExpress product page does not advertise that it comes with these games. Another alternative hypothetical scenario is that the developers behind this console accidentally included all the titles they were using to test the device in the general release.
Whatever the case, this could become a legal problem for Lenovo. After all, even if it’s just a white-labeled device made by a third-party manufacturer, it still carries the company’s branding. The company, in theory, could do some damage control to prevent this from becoming a bigger issue, like recalling the affected products or remotely deleting them, if possible. But the fact that Nintendo games were likely distributed outside of official channels would catch the attention of the Japanese company’s lawyers.
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