Creator of 'GBA4iOS' Teases New SNES, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 iOS Emulator 'Delta'

[MacRumors]

Developer Riley Testut has begun teasing the launch of a new emulator, called "Delta," coming this December in beta form, presumably for iOS devices. On Delta's teaser site, hazy images of controllers for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 are shown alongside the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color. Testut tweeted out the information for Delta yesterday, while also saying goodbye to his previous emulator GBA4iOS.

Users were able to get GBA4iOS onto their iOS device without jailbreaking it by setting the iPhone's date back to 2012, but even a 2.0 update to the software made it easier to install the emulator and removed that requirement. A built-in web browser allowed users to install and play original Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Color ROMs right on their iPhone or iPad. Although the platform has yet to be confirmed, Testut's mention of GBA4iOS alongside the Delta teaser suggests that the new emulator will be for iOS devices.

The new website for Delta doesn't confirm how the emulator will handle downloads yet, but will likely be in a similar vein to Testut's previous software emulators. Responding to a few user questions in the original Twitter thread, Testut mentioned that tvOS support is something he wants, but "there are some technical issues right now standing in the way," so the launch is expected to focus on iOS.

Goodbye GBA4iOS. Hello, Delta. https://t.co/If4W92MMmf - Riley Testut (@rileytestut) November 21, 2016

Apple often takes a stringent approach to emulators that appear to download on its devices, but it was Nintendo which filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown request against GBA4iOS in 2014, leading to the shut down of that emulator. Similar ends met emulators like iDOS and iMAME in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Article Link: Creator of 'GBA4iOS' Teases New SNES, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 iOS Emulator 'Delta'

 

[blackcrayon]

Excited. Provenance is a really good Sega Master System/Genesis and NES/SNES emulator, would be great to see something up to date for the 64 and gameboy. Though it's a little harder to install them on iOS than other platforms (but much easier now with Xcode), it seems iOS devices' usually superior CPU and GPUs make them ideal for emulation.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Nintendo views emulators as software that enables copyright infringement (the concept of an emulator is legal under US copyright law but it's a gray area as to whether they enable infringement of the copyrighted ROMs much like a torrent site enables infringement of movies and music if they do not promptly handle DMCA requests). MacRumors may want to reconsider linking the product.

 

[0098386]

Good for folk that don't have 3DS's.
[doublepost=1479825026][/doublepost]

Nintendo views emulators as software that enables copyright infringement (the concept of an emulator is legal under US copyright law but it's a gray area as to whether they enable infringement of the copyrighted ROMs much like a torrent site enables infringement of movies and music if they do not promptly handle DMCA requests). MacRumors may want to reconsider linking the product.

Haha, no they never do. You can't talk about pirating Apple's products but it's fine for everyone else. Knowing journalism I imagine its to keep in Apple's good books.

 

[Eorlas]

but it was Nintendo which filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown request against GBA4iOS in 2014, leading to the shut down of that emulator. Similar ends met emulators like iDOS and iMAME in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

You can still get GBA4iOS with support for iOS 9 & 10, legitimately on your device without a jailbreak. I'm not sure if it's against the rules to share here so I will not, but it's not shutdown entirely.

 

[miknos]

Imagine how cool being able to play Nintendo, SEGA, Atari, Capcom, etc on your Apple tv! All your favorite games!

 

[TurboPGT!]

Imagine how cool being able to play Nintendo, SEGA, Atari, Capcom, etc on your Apple tv! All your favorite games!

Yeah - it would be cool...for it to come through an official channel.

Nintendo must hate making money. They are missing huge opportunity to help drive Apple TV gaming. They hold the largest library of OLD games (which inarguably could run on AppleTV hardware) that are still relevant and would be interesting to people.

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Yeah - it would be cool...for it to come through an official channel.

Nintendo must hate making money. They are missing huge opportunity to help drive Apple TV gaming. They hold the largest library of OLD games (which inarguably could run on AppleTV hardware) that are still relevant and would be interesting to people.

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

They also sell a device that does exactly this...and they happen to have high standards for QA that make it already slow to rerelease games on their own devices.

 

[Keane16]

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

As Iconoclysm mentions they have a device that does this. And they also have emulators for their consoles via Virtual Console. Another avenue for playing their old titles would be great, but I think it's a selling point for their own hardware.

Not to mention Super Mario Run is coming out for $10. We're in dreamland if we think NES and SNES games would be a dollar or 2 a pop. I've got great memories playing a lot of their old games at release, and I would be glad to pay way more than that.

 

[0098386]

Imagine how cool being able to play Nintendo, SEGA, Atari, Capcom, etc on your Apple tv! All your favorite games!

You already can. The Wii, Wii U and soon Nintendo Switch play all those games on your TV. I've been doing that very thing since 2006. It's pretty good!

 

[SupaDav03]

Yeah - it would be cool...for it to come through an official channel.

Nintendo must hate making money. They are missing huge opportunity to help drive Apple TV gaming. They hold the largest library of OLD games (which inarguably could run on AppleTV hardware) that are still relevant and would be interesting to people.

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

No way would those prices work. Nintendo sells VCU games for NES at $2.99-$3.99 now with SNES games going for $7.99. Not sure about N64. Nintendo still sells 3 year old Wii U games for $50. They do not believe in low software prices because they believe the quality of the games makes them worth the price.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yeah - it would be cool...for it to come through an official channel.

Nintendo must hate making money. They are missing huge opportunity to help drive Apple TV gaming. They hold the largest library of OLD games (which inarguably could run on AppleTV hardware) that are still relevant and would be interesting to people.

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

Not to mention they could easily get $60 out of people for Official Nintendo mFi Retro controllers for each platform.

And as others have stated above, I'd pay even higher prices for the games if they were real Nintendo licensed options.
[doublepost=1479832865][/doublepost]...But since Nintendo doesn't want to cater to those of us who refuse to buy their hardware at this point (just not enough use for it), I guess we'll just keep emulating and keep our money that we'd like to be giving them for some more compelling and modern options..

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Good for folk that don't have 3DS's.
[doublepost=1479825026][/doublepost]
Haha, no they never do. You can't talk about pirating Apple's products but it's fine for everyone else. Knowing journalism I imagine its to keep in Apple's good books.

Even on the Apple front they've specifically exempted "hackintoshes." This site is a small fish so probably doesn't have anything to worry about but they have opened themselves to liability on both instances; particularly given that they've been notified of the issue and explicitly chosen to stay the course.
[doublepost=1479833437][/doublepost]

They also sell a device that does exactly this...and they happen to have high standards for QA that make it already slow to rerelease games on their own devices.

but we have to hate that device because it comes with a very short cable so you'd have to buy another cable to use it conveniently.

 

[LordQ]

I'd easily pay $10 - $20 on the App Store to play a port of Pokémon HeartGold or Fire Emblem made by Nintendo.

 

[vmistery]

It always frustrates me when these types of things are shot down but no method of actually purchasing the games exists natively for iOS. If I were Nintendo Sega etc I'd be all over it especially as the popularity of the wiiU and 3ds has been tiny in comparison. They would also be great on the Apple TV, hell I'd buy a new one if I could get some of the old Mario games.

 

[Dustman]

Imagine how cool being able to play Nintendo, SEGA, Atari, Capcom, etc on your Apple tv! All your favorite games!

Erm, Provenance does just this. Unless you mean something more official.

Fingers crossed this comes to tvOS. I love Provenance but N64 and/or PS1 support would be amazing.

 

[macduke]

Similar ends met emulators like iDOS and iMAME in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Hah, I still have iDOS on my iPad and occasionally boot up Windows 98 because why wouldn't you? As a matter of fact, I just opened it up and (horribly) drew the MacRumors logo in Paint. It's really hard to draw because it's a virtual mouse with virtual mouse buttons, so it's not a 1:1 touchscreen by any means. You have to hold down with one finger on the mouse button and with the other hand wiggle your finger around to move the mouse cursor to draw. Fun!

 

[rhoydotp]

You already can. The Wii, Wii U and soon Nintendo Switch play all those games on your TV. I've been doing that very thing since 2006. It's pretty good!

Quick to the gun, are we ... original post explicitly said "Apple TV" not just TV. A lot of people are already doing it since 2006, even earlier for some.

 

[anek007]

Yeah - it would be cool...for it to come through an official channel.

Nintendo must hate making money. They are missing huge opportunity to help drive Apple TV gaming. They hold the largest library of OLD games (which inarguably could run on AppleTV hardware) that are still relevant and would be interesting to people.

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

People forget Apple Tv is restrictive. Game controllers need to be mfi certified. Another way greedy Apple trying to make more money. The available mfi controllers are ugly and expensive. I use these on my iPad to play Nintendo games. It's wireless and uses Bluetooth. Works for iPhone/iPad/android/PC/Mac but not Apple TV cause it's not mfi certified.

 

[JawnVawka]

Erm, Provenance does just this. Unless you mean something more official.

Fingers crossed this comes to tvOS. I love Provenance but N64 and/or PS1 support would be amazing.

I like provenance but my 8bitdo Nes 30 pro doesn't work with it even though it says it supports those

 

[BillyBobBongo]

People would undoubtedly pay $1-2 per game for NES & SNES titles. $2-3 per game for N64 titles.

...and there in lies the problem no doubt. People have gotten cheap and I would assume that Nintendo would want to make more money than just a few Dollars per game. However doing so would no doubt come with a certain amount of backlash from those looking for a cheap solution.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't,

Still, some money is always better the no money.

 

[0098386]

It always frustrates me when these types of things are shot down but no method of actually purchasing the games exists natively for iOS. If I were Nintendo Sega etc I'd be all over it especially as the popularity of the wiiU and 3ds has been tiny in comparison. They would also be great on the Apple TV, hell I'd buy a new one if I could get some of the old Mario games.

How much has the Apple TV sold? Genuinely curious - not trying to make a point.
The Wii, where these retro games can be bought and played on a regular TV, was the 2nd best selling console ever. That's pretty good I think, and the Wii U doesn't really add to that except with GBA and DS games (which aren't as numerous as NES, SNES, Mega Drive etc). The 3DS sold very well too... I think that's the 2nd best selling handheld console. Pokemon was just released for it and got 2 million physical sales over the weekend in Japan alone (doesn't include download sales). I think Nintendo are just fine with that size market but I could be wrong. At least 2 million full priced game sales... well that's an awful lot for just one region. Imagine how much it did worldwide with download sales included.

 

[MacBH928]

I like the locked controlled app store system, you don't have to worry about viruses and malware and those who used Windows 98 know how nightmarish this can be.

But we also lose a lot with strict controls like banning emulators. Emulating OS's and software can be a lot of fun and adds a lot to the possibilities.

Hah, I still have iDOS on my iPad and occasionally boot up Windows 98 because why wouldn't you? As a matter of fact, I just opened it up and (horribly) drew the MacRumors logo in Paint. It's really hard to draw because it's a virtual mouse with virtual mouse buttons, so it's not a 1:1 touchscreen by any means. You have to hold down with one finger on the mouse button and with the other hand wiggle your finger around to move the mouse cursor to draw. Fun!

Whats your iPad model?
How fast does it run? This is very interesting since IIRC the fastest PC back in Win '98 was 200MHz

 

[TurboPGT!]

...and there in lies the problem no doubt. People have gotten cheap and I would assume that Nintendo would want to make more money than just a few Dollars per game. However doing so would no doubt come with a certain amount of backlash from those looking for a cheap solution.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't,

Still, some money is always better the no money.

People haven't gotten cheap. That's not the problem. The market decided the value of iOS games. They are generally pretty devoid of content and production value. Most are not worth more than $1-4.

And you're right, Nintendo is no doubt under the complete and total delusion that unaltered ports of 20-30 year old games are still worth $10+ per game.
[doublepost=1479911637][/doublepost]

People forget Apple Tv is restrictive. Game controllers need to be mfi certified. Another way greedy Apple trying to make more money. The available mfi controllers are ugly and expensive. I use these on my iPad to play Nintendo games. It's wireless and uses Bluetooth. Works for iPhone/iPad/android/PC/Mac but not Apple TV cause it's not mfi certified.

Blathering nonsense. There is nothing "restrictive" about it. There are dozens of excellent options for AppleTV game controllers. The problem is that there are absolutely no games on Apple TV to make it worth buying a $50 controller.

 

[vmistery]

How much has the Apple TV sold? Genuinely curious - not trying to make a point.
The Wii, where these retro games can be bought and played on a regular TV, was the 2nd best selling console ever. That's pretty good I think, and the Wii U doesn't really add to that except with GBA and DS games (which aren't as numerous as NES, SNES, Mega Drive etc). The 3DS sold very well too... I think that's the 2nd best selling handheld console. Pokemon was just released for it and got 2 million physical sales over the weekend in Japan alone (doesn't include download sales). I think Nintendo are just fine with that size market but I could be wrong. At least 2 million full priced game sales... well that's an awful lot for just one region. Imagine how much it did worldwide with download sales included.

I'm talking iOS and ATV. I want to play it on my tablet on the train and my ATV. Perhaps a Bluetooth controller that works with both