Over the weekend, people noticed that Apple had finally approved two iPhone emulator apps on its App Store for the first time in forever. iGBA for GameBoy and Emu64 XL for Commodore 64 can emulate your favorite old games if you have a copy.
Since the big video game companies that make these games have no such business, downloading an illegal ROM is the only proper way to emulate the game on your iPhone. To no one’s surprise, Apple removed the iGBA for GameBoy from the App Store this Sunday night – most likely after a furious call from Nintendo.
I recently wrote that with Apple’s latest rules for emulation apps, Nintendo should take advantage of this change and make a ton of profit from one of its most lucrative and underutilized assets: vintage games from the 90s and 2000s.
While Big N focuses on the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, there’s no better way to play a Game Boy game than on your iPhone, which resembles a futuristic Game Boy. However, the Japanese company doesn’t like people using its intellectual property for free, which is why I think this emulator app was removed.
Are iPhone emulator apps coming back to the App Store?
In early April, Apple opened the App Store for retro game emulators. Here’s what Apple had to say about the change:
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.
While these rule changes are ostensibly in response to an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice with emulator apps coming to European Union users, it’s hard to allow emulator apps and ignore the fact that most people will pirate their games when they use them.
What’s also interesting about iPhone emulator apps is that one of the most popular developers in the field, Riley Testut, still hasn’t released his Delta emulator on the App Store. Although his app was approved within a third-party app store for EU users, it was not available in Apple’s App Store.
With the news of the release of this iGBA emulator, here’s what Testut wrote on Threads:
So apparently Apple has approved a copy of GBA4iOS — the Delta predecessor I made in high school — in the App Store. I didn’t give anyone permission to do this, but now it’s at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking). I’ve been biting my tongue for the past month… but this is really frustrating me. I’m glad App Review exists to protect consumers from scams and scams like this
Then, after Apple removed the app, it released the following:
My frustration stemmed entirely from the fact that we had been ready to launch Delta since last month. This whole situation could have been avoided if Apple hadn’t delayed our approval until they changed their rules to allow emulators. However, to Apple’s credit, once they became aware of the problem, they took it seriously. So I really don’t believe this was malicious at all — just an unfortunate situation for everyone involved
Wrap
Are emulator apps coming back to the App Store? Will Delta ever launch legally? Will Nintendo start a battle with Apple? There are a few unanswered questions at this point. Still, I don’t think the future is very bright for iPhone emulator apps, and the only way to fix that would be for Nintendo and other gaming companies to release their own emulator apps, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen anytime soon.
However, even if Apple allows emulator apps in the App Store, they may never reach their full potential.
BGR will let you know if Apple makes any announcements or if the company allows new apps into its store.