Retro gamers have long known that one of Android’s long-standing advantages over iOS is its support for emulators. If you wanted to play your favorite old Nintendo, Sony or Sega games on your phone, the iPhone wasn’t really an option, unless you were open to jailbreaking your device or relying on web emulators that are more limited than dedicated emulation apps.
Well, it wasn’t on my 2024 Apple bingo card, but times are changing on iOS: The company updated its App Store review guidelines on Friday, adding language covering game emulators, as follows:
Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, especially HTML5 mini-apps and mini-games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer game downloads.”
It’s a major reversal for Apple, and likely the result of pressure from both the United States Department of Justice and the European Commission to open up iOS to more services and competition. The Justice Department’s case against Apple is built in part on its history of pushing back on things like cloud streaming and “cool” apps. The company has since opened up support for cloud streaming apps like Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now. Friday’s guideline changes also indicate that Apple will allow developers to offer mini-apps based on HTML5, which would support super apps like WeChat that provide these types of services on other platforms.
These iOS-compatible emulators aren’t available yet, but expect the developers to start working on them soon.
Are emulators illegal?
Emulators sometimes get a bad rap because many people assume they are used to play games illegally. But emulators themselves don’t necessarily break any laws: simply making programs to play games from a specific platform is usually a legally valid practice. The problem often boils down to how these emulators run games, as well as the tactics app developers use to incentivize their users.
Emulators allow you to play ROMs or digital game files. These files can be obtained legally (usually by purchasing the game), but are often distributed illegally on the Internet. When emulators not only play pirated ROMs, but actively show users how to download them… that’s when developers run into problems.
Nintendo shut down the popular Switch emulator Yuzu last month for emulating games, but essentially for showing gamers how pirate games. Because Nintendo attacks people who post music, music on YouTube they are happy to remove developers who allow their users to “steal” games. If a developer wants their emulator on the App Store, they’ll probably need to make sure it can only play legally acquired ROMs.
This means that if popular Android emulators like Retroarch and Dolphin come to iOS, they probably won’t offer any advice on installing ROMs from the internet. It’s up to you to get your own ROM files from games you already own or from other legal sources, such as archive.org, who get a pass to their ROM collection for digital preservation.