LogInMore iconic emulators with plenty of history and development, bringing Atari, NES, SNES, DS, Game Boy, Sega Saturn, PlayStation Portable, and other consoles to mobile Apple devices went live.
Recently, we've been watching Apple lifting restrictions from emulating retro games for the first time ever and launching Delta as one of the first officially approved apps to emulate multiple Nintendo consoles, from the NES to DS, immediately rising to #1 on the Top Free Apps chart.
It was Sony's turn to receive a PlayStation Portable emulator for mobile Apple devices, as the developer of a widely popular PSP emulator PPSSPP has teased the possibility of it coming to the App Store. Now, it's official: you can download PPSSPP for free or get a paid version for $4.99 to support this beloved project.
Image Credits: PPSSPP
Image Credits: PPSSPP
Check out this neat video by Eric Arraché testing three different PPSSPP games on an iPhone with a GameSir X2 controller:
As the developer Henrik Rydgård explains in the official blog post, this release has some limitations compared to the earlier unofficial builds, for example, there's no Magic Keyboard support, temporarily disabled MoltenVK and RetroAchievements, and most importantly, no JIT compiler due to Apple's rules, which is in fact what Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator, also uses.
Still, with RetroArch also joining the App Store, we have emulation for every system before GameCube and PlayStation 2 on iOS with no workarounds. This is great news for retro games fans, as it can emulate a mindblowing number of old consoles within a single app.
Image Credits: RetroArch
Image Credits: RetroArch
Technically, RetroArch isn't an emulator, but a frontend app for game emulation, meaning you need to install emulator cores, a separate emulation software, when you want to play a game. Here's the full list of included cores:
- 2048
- Amstrad - CPC (CrocoDS)
- Amstrad - CPC/GX4000 (Caprice32)
- Arcade (FinalBurn Neo)
- Atari - 2600 (Stella 2014)
- Atari - 2600 (Stella)
- Atari - 5200 (Atari800)
- Atari - 5200 (a5200)
- Atari - 7800 (ProSystem)
- Atari - Lynx (Handy)
- Bandai - WonderSwan/Color (Beetle Cygne)
- Commodore - Amiga (PUAE)
- Commodore - C128 (VICE x128)
- Commodore - C64 (VICE x64, fast)
- Commodore - C64 (VICE x64sc, accurate)
- Commodore - C64 SuperCPU (VICE xscpu64)
- Commodore - CBM-II 5x0 (VICE xcbm5x0)
- Commodore - CBM-II 6x0/7x0 (VICE xcbm2)
- Commodore - PET (VICE xpet)
- Commodore - PLUS/4 (VICE xplus4)
- Commodore - VIC-20 (VICE xvic)
- Dinothawr
- Fairchild ChannelF (FreeChaF)
- GCE - Vectrex (vecx)
- Game Music Emu
- Handheld Electronic (GW)
- MSX/SVI/ColecoVision/SG-1000 (blueMSX)
- Mattel - Intellivision (FreeIntv)
- NEC - PC Engine / CD (Beetle PCE FAST)
- NEC - PC Engine / SuperGrafx / CD (Beetle PCE)
- NEC - PC Engine SuperGrafx (Beetle SuperGrafx)
- NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai)
- Nintendo - DS (DeSmuME)
- Nintendo - Game Boy / Color (Gambatte)
- Nintendo - Game Boy / Color (Gearboy)
- Nintendo - Game Boy / Color (SameBoy)
- Nintendo - Game Boy / Color (TGB Dual)
- Nintendo - Game Boy Advance (VBA Next)
- Nintendo - Game Boy Advance (VBA-M)
- Nintendo - Game Boy Advance (gpSP)
- Nintendo - Game Boy Advance (mGBA)
- Nintendo - NES / Famicom (FCEUmm)
- Nintendo - NES / Famicom (Mesen)
- Nintendo - NES / Famicom (Nestopia UE)
- Nintendo - NES / Famicom (QuickNES)
- Nintendo - Nintendo 64 (Mupen64Plus-Next)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC (Snes9x 2005)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC (Snes9x 2010)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC (Snes9x)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC (bsnes)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC (bsnes-hd beta)
- Nintendo - SNES / SFC / Game Boy / Color (Mesen-S)
- Nintendo - Virtual Boy (Beetle VB)
- PocketCDG
- Quake (TyrQuake)
- Rick Dangerous (XRick)
- SNK - Neo Geo AES/MVS (Geolith)
- SNK - Neo Geo CD (NeoCD)
- SNK - Neo Geo Pocket / Color (RACE)
- ScummVM
- Sega - MS/GG (SMS Plus GX)
- Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD (Genesis Plus GX Wide)
- Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD (Genesis Plus GX)
- Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD/32X (PicoDrive)
- Sega - MS/GG/SG-1000 (Gearsystem)
- Sega - Saturn (Beetle Saturn)
- Sharp - X68000 (PX68k)
- Sinclair - ZX Spectrum (Fuse)
- Sony - PlayStation (Beetle PSX HW)
- Sony - PlayStation (Beetle PSX)
- Sony - PlayStation (PCSX ReARMed)
- Sony - PlayStation Portable (PPSSPP)
- Texas Instruments TI-83 (Numero)
- Thomson - MO/TO (Theodore)
- Vircon32
- VirtualXT
- WASM-4
- Watara - Supervision (Potator)
On top of that, RetroArch features online gameplay, gyro control, fast-forward and rewind, soft patching, RetroAchievements, remapping buttons or keys per emulation core or per game, and more.
PPSSPP and RetroArch are compatible with iOS 12.0 and 14.2 or later respectively. Naturally, no games are included with the download. Lumines, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and an almost infinite number of iconic older games in your pocket device is a great reason to check out PPSSPP and RetroArch.
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