iPhone emulators on the App Store: Game Boy, N64, PS1, PSP and more

In April, Apple updated its guidelines to allow retro game emulators on the App Store, and several popular emulators have already been released.

The emulators released so far allow iPhone users to play games released for older consoles from Nintendo, Sony, SEGA, Atari and others.

Here is a list of some popular emulators available on the App Store.

Released

Delta

Delta is a well-polished emulator for several Nintendo consoles, with stunning on-screen controller skins, support for a wide range of physical controllers, and much more. Developed by Riley Testut, Delta is the successor to the GBA4iOS emulator.

Compatible devices:

iPad support coming soon.

Supported consoles:

• Game Boy (all models)
• Nintendo-DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
• Nintendo 64 (N64)

RetroArch

RetroArch is an interface that provides all-in-one access to many different emulators for Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, SEGA, Sony and other consoles. The app features RetroAchievements, which are essentially custom challenges added to classic games, such as “find and collect a fire flower” in Super Mario Bros. for NES.

Compatible devices:

Supported consoles:

• Atari2600
• Commodore 64
• PlayStation (PS1)
• PlayStation Portable (PSP)
• SEGA Genesis
• SEGA Saturn
• Game Boy (all models)
• Nintendo-DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
• Nintendo 64 (N64)

The full list of consoles supported by RetroArch can be found in the app description on the App Store.

PPSSPP

The PlayStation Portable emulator PPSSPP is built into RetroArch, but it’s also available as a standalone app for those who want a more distilled experience.

Compatible devices:

Supported consoles:

• PlayStation Portable (PSP)

Gamma

Gamma is an emulator for the original PlayStation. It is developed by ZodTTD, which has been creating emulators for jailbroken iPhones for around 15 years.

Compatible devices:

Supported consoles:

Future

Origin

Provenance is another interface with all-in-one access to emulators for Atari, Nintendo, SEGA, Sony and other consoles. The app is currently available in beta through TestFlight and will launch on the App Store soon. Provenance has been in development since 2016 and could already be downloaded to the iPhone.

Compatible devices:

Supported consoles:

• Atari2600
• ColecoVision
• PlayStation (PS1)
• PlayStation Portable (PSP)
• SEGA Genesis
• SEGA Saturn
• SEGA Dreamcast
• Game Boy (all models)
• Nintendo-DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
• Nintendo 64 (N64)

A full list of supported consoles is available on the Provenance website.

I’m not coming

Dolphin

The popular GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin will not be available in the App Store, as its developers said Apple will not allow the emulator to use just-in-time (JIT) compilation, and PowerPC-based games are “fundamentally unplayable” without it. :

The GameCube and Wii contain a PowerPC-based processor. All modern Apple devices use an ARM-based processor. It is not possible to directly run PowerPC code on an ARM processor, and vice versa. Therefore, if we want to run a GameCube or Wii game on an iPhone, it is necessary to translate the game’s PowerPC code to ARM so that the CPU can understand it.

Dolphin uses what is called a Just-in-Time (JIT) recompiler to achieve this. Whenever the emulated console wants to run the game code, Dolphin uses its JIT to translate the PowerPC code to ARM and then executes the results.

Unfortunately, Apple generally doesn’t allow apps to use JIT recompilers on iOS.