Popular Delta Retro Game Emulator Officially Comes to iPad

[Radeon85]

Nintendo still offers a way to play these retro games on the Nintendo switch.

Not all of them, there is an enormous amount missing plus they only have Nintendo games and not games from other consoles. Plus the the ones emulated outside of the Switch are better anyway as the emulators are far more customisable, something the Switch won't do even though Nintendo is using an emulator themselves to make them work so they could add options if they want but they won't. If I want to stretch the image a bit and go fullscreen I can, upscale the resolution etc and many more tweaks.

 

[NagasakiGG]

That's the choice of the content owner to decide when to sell to maximize sales, Disney doesn't have their videos for sale all the time, they keep them in the " Disney vault" and puts them for sale when there is pent up demand. That doesn't give you the right to steal when you want.

Not sure if you’re trolling or really that naive… just let people do whatever they want

 

[neuropsychguy]

Here's the only possibility, the EU...

That’s been confirmed by Apple executives?

 

[AppliedMicro]

That’s been confirmed by Apple executives?

Rarely do Apple executives explain their policies - or changes thereof - publicly.

And when they do, it shouldn't simply be taken at face value.

 

[d686546s]

That’s some revisionist history right there. Retro emulators were not allowed until a few months back. Apple allowed them worldwide as a way of getting ahead of more regulation from other political entities. They knew from the days of jailbreaking that if Apple don’t provide the community finds a way.

I don't think allowing emulators on the App Store had anything to do with getting ahead of [edit: more] regulation. They could have kept their ban on the App Store and just let them live in alternative stores (in the EU).

This was a PR move, plain and simple. Emulators would have been a prime example of something 'cool' you couldn't do on your iPhone in the US but could in the EU. It doesn't even really matter how many people would have used it, the tech press would have been all over it (as they actually were).

It would have looked bad, plain and simple. I doubt many people will actually use emulators regularly once the dust has settled, but at that point the damage would have already been done. So they got ahead of that.

 

[AppliedMicro]

This was a PR move, plain and simple. Emulators would have been a prime example of something 'cool' you couldn't do on your iPhone in the US but could in the EU

...because of new EU regulation.

I otherwise fully agree with your post. They got ahead of how the effects of regulation would be perceived elsewhere.

 

[d686546s]

...because of new EU regulation.

I otherwise fully agree with your post. They got ahead of how the effects of regulation would be perceived elsewhere.

Yeah absolutely, that was my point.

I have now slightly edited my post because the post I was responding to said the purpose was to get ahead of more regulation, but I don't think emulators themselves would have had any impact in either direction.

They would have unlikely been important in deciding whether or not Apple is a gatekeeper, nor would they have been important enough to kick off any kind of investigation. The DMA was pretty much in place when Apple changed its policy.

 

[magicvash]

For those wondering it’s now a universal app. I just had to update the app on my iPad.

Switch Pro controllers are amazing paired with my new M2 iPad

 

[d686546s]

When this stuff is niche companies turn a blind eye. Making these emulators more popular is just going to get someone arrested. Now Nintendo will force a lot of sites to hand over the logs.

Don't think VPN protects you either. Trackers go around that stuff all the time. If you're downloading ROMS today you going to be F'd unless you live in Siberia.

Most of those ROM sites use click bait links and full of malware too. Good luck with them.

Nintendo going after ROM sites is possible, they've been doing that for a while, but regular users getting arrested because they've downloaded something from one of these sites is grade A fearmongering.

First of all, I'd be surprised if these sites kept any kind off detailed logs in the first place. Second, even if Nintendo could get its hands on internet connection records, and that's a big if, they could likely only show that you visited a particular site, but not whether you downloaded a particular file. Visiting ROM sites isn't illegal. Third, even if none of this is true, it will then depend on whether this conduct is a criminal offence in the user's jurisdiction, which it very well may not be.

Overall I think Nintendo will have a very hard time showing that a particular individual violated their copyright.

 

[maxoakland]

That's the tricky question. Legally speaking, you would have to own a cartridge (meaning a proper license, even if it's second hand) and then make a copy of it by yourself. Downloading the ROM from some shady site is most likely not legal. That's my laymen's understanding of the issue.

Some developers sell ROMs. There are tons of games being made for retro systems today. Devs like me sell them on websites like Itch.io

 

[turbineseaplane]

I wonder if we will ever be able to have a thread about emulators that doesn’t devolve into arguing about ROM sourcing and ethics

Can’t we just talk about the emulator and let people do whatever they want in terms of ROMs?

 

[Royksöpp]

It’s a great time to be an iOS user. These new emulators are perfect.

 

[Pakaku]

That's the tricky question. Legally speaking, you would have to own a cartridge (meaning a proper license, even if it's second hand) and then make a copy of it by yourself. Downloading the ROM from some shady site is most likely not legal. That's my laymen's understanding of the issue.

Distribution is definitely illegal, so a site that hosts ROMs that they don't own, or a person uploading their own dumps or ROMs they downloaded elsewhere, would both be illegal.

Downloading is a grey-area, I'm pretty sure it's not necessarily illegal to simply download a ROM for your own personal purposes, but I have a hard time imagining people who are against the idea of emulation caring to make the distinction.

Dumping your own ROMs for yourself will annoy game publishers, but isn't really illegal as far as I can tell

 

[frownface]

It’s a great time to be an iOS user. These new emulators are perfect.

agree with this, been having a blast playing games snes/nes/gb games i enjoyed as a kid.
Gaming was so much better back then without all the microtransaction/ad bloat that modern games have.

 

[turbineseaplane]

agree with this, been having a blast playing games snes/nes/gb games i enjoyed as a kid.
Gaming was so much better back then without all the microtransaction/ad bloat that modern games have.

Same -- To this day, my favorite Tetris are the very old and simpler ones from NES/Gameboy era

 

[JimmyHook]

And what would be the reason for Apple's sudden change of mind/policy? Give us just one that is plausible.

There are many possible reasons. Perhaps their lawyers evaluated the current legal landscape around them, and concluded that there is far less risk today than there was a decade ago?

The point is that neither you nor I know the exact reason. You can speculate, but it doesn’t make your belief instantly true.

 

[grovian]

The biggest scam is that Apple made people believe the company is the one who decides what people can install on their own devices that they own, not the owners themselves.

 

[Ctrlos]

Actually, your version is the "revisionist". Mame4iOS, Active-GS/FTA (not locked down), iDOS, and others were available in The App Store years ago. I've had them all.

But they were apps that snuck through Apple’s automated review system before quickly being pulled. Apple treated them with the same contempt it does spyware apps that also sneak in.

The first proper allowed emulator apps weren’t until this year.

 

[svish]

Happy to see this on iPad

 

[SanderEvers]

If you want to you can dump roms of your GBA / GB / GBC games using the GameBoy Operator (https://www.epilogue.co/product/gb-operator ). You insert your original cartridge in this device and you can legally back them up to your PC/Mac.

Also you can install custom firmware onto a 3DS to dump 3DS and DS game roms. But there the legallity is "questionable" since that also allows playing pirated games.

 

[Naraxus]

Nintendo won't be happy

Nor should they be

 

[hans1972]

Not sure if you’re trolling or really that naive… just let people do whatever they want

Also, just let generative AI companies collect all the material they want without regard to copyright.
Agree?

 

[hans1972]

I wonder if we will ever be able to have a thread about emulators that doesn’t devolve into arguing about ROM sourcing and ethics

Can’t we just talk about the emulator and let people do whatever they want in terms of ROMs?

When we can have the same conversation when it comes to LLMs.

Can't we just let AI companies do whatever they want in therms of content?

 

[Ctrlos]

Nintendo going after ROM sites is possible, they've been doing that for a while, but regular users getting arrested because they've downloaded something from one of these sites is grade A fearmongering.

First of all, I'd be surprised if these sites kept any kind off detailed logs in the first place. Second, even if Nintendo could get its hands on internet connection records, and that's a big if, they could likely only show that you visited a particular site, but not whether you downloaded a particular file. Visiting ROM sites isn't illegal. Third, even if none of this is true, it will then depend on whether this conduct is a criminal offence in the user's jurisdiction, which it very well may not be.

Overall I think Nintendo will have a very hard time showing that a particular individual violated their copyright.

Nintendo went after Vimm and they deleted all their roms in complaince. Going after hundreds of thousands of individual users would be a waste of their resources. Better to cut off the source.

 

[dominiongamma]

Nintendo still offers a way to play these retro games on the Nintendo switch.

Behind a pay wall