A big change is coming to the App Store, as Apple opens its doors to enable video game emulators.
For a long time, if you wanted to emulate games on your phone, of the two most popular operating systems, Android was the only way to do it. Playing emulated games on iOS has been a pain and largely unpopular since its inception, but in an update released by Apple earlier this week, the hardware and software maker announced that emulators will now be allowed to be published in its storefront, App Store. It’s important to note that all retro game console emulator apps are “responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws.”
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This basically means that they can’t let you download ROMs and such through the app, because distributing ROMs counts as piracy. The emulators themselves are perfectly legal, as is playing games on them, but sites that distribute ROMs tend to come under fire from companies like Nintendo. Obviously, it will take some time for certain emulators to hit the App Store, so you won’t be able to jump into them right away, but if you’re interested in emulation and only use Apple products, you’ll soon be able to get into it more easily.
The change appears to be the result of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US against Apple, which claims the company is trying to prevent the use of cloud gaming apps and super apps, the latter of which are apps that allow you to use other services or play games through the app itself. Today’s policy change also notes that apps like WeChat can host games within them, but they must be built using HTML5 and cannot be native apps or games. Apple also updated its policies earlier this year to allow apps like Nvidia’s GeForce Now and Xbox Game Pass to stream games in the cloud, so it’s clear the pressure from the antitrust lawsuit is working.