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[Draugoth]

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App Store guidelines now allows game emulators​

But there’s another important update to the App Store guidelines, and this one applies worldwide. For the first time, Apple is allowing developers to create and distribute game emulators on the App Store. The news was confirmed by Apple in an email sent to developers.

Since the very first iPhone, developers have been finding ways to distribute game emulators to iOS users. The App Store guidelines have never allowed emulator software, but some apps have had luck bypassing Apple’s review process by disguising their apps and hiding emulators within them. But that’s changing now with the App Store’s new guidelines.

The section on mini apps and game streaming has now been updated to include game emulators. “Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games,” Apple says. However, there’s a catch.

Example of a game emulator for iOS available through sideloading
Apple warns that developers are “responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws.” This raises the question of whether anyone can release a game emulator or only the companies that own the rights to the games distributed for it.

via 9to5Mac

 

[lh032]

Apple and Nintendo:

 

[Spukc]

Guess what happens when the european third party store goes live…

Fuck apple’s appstore leggo emulators

 

[theHFIC]

Guess what happens when the european third party store goes live…

Fuck apple’s appstore leggo emulators

if this winds up truly allowing unrestricted bring your own ROMs emulators to the iOS app store, why would they go 3rd party app store and risk paying .50 cents per additional download past 1M out of pocket?

 

[Spukc]

if this winds up truly allowing unrestricted bring your own ROMs emulators to the iOS app store, why would they go 3rd party app store and risk paying .50 cents per additional download past 1M out of pocket?

Ofc when the OG apple store suddenly magically also allows it just before the third party store launch

 

[theHFIC]

Ofc when the OG apple store suddenly magically also allows it just before the third party store launch

Yah that’s the goal of this whole mandate that started everything: fair market. Apple wants to keep the business to their app store so they’ll change restrictions to keep customers. This is the competition EU wanted.

 

[Spukc]

Yah that’s the goal of this whole mandate that started everything: fair market. Apple wants to keep the business to their app store so they’ll change restrictions to keep customers. This is the competition EU wanted.

Yup a win win

 

[Puscifer]

Too bad there's still no side loading or direct access to the storage like on Android

 

[Comandr]

Still don’t know why Nintendo/TPC has never cashed in on the nostalgia and released something like this.

Add online battle and trading between contacts, charge $4.99 for the first couple entries of the Pokémon Retro series… laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yah that’s the goal of this whole mandate that started everything: fair market. Apple wants to keep the business to their app store so they’ll change restrictions to keep customers. This is the competition EU wanted.

Almost but not quite. This is still software Apple wants if Apple wants when they want it. If people were to flee the App Store for alternative ones they lose the data tracking monopoly they created with the App Tracking Transparency scam too.

Apple is trying their best not to make competition to the App Store viable and to ensure nobody has a reason to use the alternative App Stores, not to make the viable. Restrictions put in place, the “mini” app review still needed, and the Core Technology Fee are all designed not to make any of the EU demands meaningful or viable.
Sure, to do that they are also giving up some concessions to the peons like us to quiet people down. If the alternatives are not viable and less restricted we will be back here once the regulators start looking at something else a few years down the road…

 

[cyberheater]

Brilliant news.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Apple does what Nintendon't!

 

[gaming_again]

Chrono Trigger on my iPhone?

 

[Comandr]

Chrono Trigger on my iPhone?

Chrono Trigger has been available on iOS for 12 years.

 

[Quasicat]

I’m thinking this is still not happening. The part about the software being downloaded with the emulator and the whole “applicable to local laws” section which makes me think this has to happen from the ip holders...regardless of whether or not I have the original games.
I do hope I’m wrong.

 

[phant0m]

Chrono Trigger has been available on iOS for 12 years.

Yup, and it works on tvOS too

 

[phant0m]

As awesome as this is, playing old games with on-screen touch controls sucks ass. And having a separate controller is cumbersome. You’re honestly better off buying a $60 SBC device from Anbernic or Miyoo. Physical controls, removable storage, plus you’re not subject to Apple’s whims.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Apple and Nintendo:

Apple is like

 

[vodka-bull]

As awesome as this is, playing old games with on-screen touch controls sucks ass. And having a separate controller is cumbersome. You’re honestly better off buying a $60 SBC device from Anbernic or Miyoo. Physical controls, removable storage, plus you’re not subject to Apple’s whims.

This. RG35XX H costs <100€, it has physical buttons, plays almost all retro games, is a dedicated machine that doesn‘t charge anything per subscription, has a great display and you won‘t be disrupted by any messages whatsoever.

 

[SidViscous]

Still don’t know why Nintendo/TPC has never cashed in on the nostalgia and released something like this.

Add online battle and trading between contacts, charge $4.99 for the first couple entries of the Pokémon Retro series… laugh all the way to the bank.

Would make a fraction of what a game designed for mobile with predatory monetisation makes them, and one less selling point for their next console. They know what they are doing with their current mobile strategy.

 

[Pallas]

Chrono Trigger on my iPhone?

 

[Comandr]

Would make a fraction of what a game designed for mobile with predatory monetisation makes them, and one less selling point for their next console. They know what they are doing with their current mobile strategy.

This logic is fundamentally flawed.

1) this game wouldn’t be competing with anything. So it’s not a paid app vs freemium app battle. They can both exist.

2) one less selling point for their next console? Are you suggesting that Nintendo would ever use the ability to play a 26 year old game boy game as a selling point?

Pokemon is the highest grossing franchise of all time. Releasing the game that sparked that to billions of devices around the world… you don’t think that would be a profitable endeavor?

Even if only 1% of smartphone owners purchased the game at launch, that’s an estimated 68 million sales. At $4.99 less the 30% App Store cut, that’s $3.49 x 68 million.

That’s over $237,000,000 dollars. Idk seems like a worthwhile endeavor to me for what amounts to essentially a slightly enhanced rom.

So it doesn’t matter if it would make less than “a predatory mtx based game.” Because at the end of the day, it’s still a lot of fuckin money.

 

[StereoVsn]

This. RG35XX H costs <100€, it has physical buttons, plays almost all retro games, is a dedicated machine that doesn‘t charge anything per subscription, has a great display and you won‘t be disrupted by any messages whatsoever.

Yep, its a pretty great device. I recently got this one for some Genesis, some Saturn and so on. I really would have loved this format but for more powerful chipset to get better Saturn and Dreamcast emulation, but Anbernic will Anbernic, lol.

 

[Banjo64]

iGBA
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/igba-gba-gbc-retro-emulator/id6482993626

Emu64 XL
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/emu64-xl/id6483251916

From purple town:

I played around with iGBA a few minutes:

• The app uses a .sav format, and you can keep your saves from mGBA/gpSP by dropping a copy of your save in the main app folder using the name scheme ROMNAME.sav
• To add your own ROMs, navigate to them in the files app, and then click on them. The app will open and MOVE (not copy) the ROM into its folder, so you might want to copy the ROMs to your devices before importing
• No bulk imports — gotta do one at a time
• The app supports both portrait and landscape modes, haptic virtual buttons, and fast forward, but doesn't seem to support filters or overlays
• There's no auto load/auto save state, so the app may lose progress as you navigate around your phone.

 

[Comandr]

iGBA
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/igba-gba-gbc-retro-emulator/id6482993626

Emu64 XL
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/emu64-xl/id6483251916

From purple town:

I appreciate the break down from the blue hair group but, like with most things, they appear to be wrong.

The app page itself illustrates that it auto saves. I accept that maybe that function doesn’t work currently but this breakdown seems misleading.

 

[Bernoulli]

I appreciate the break down from the blue hair group but, like with most things, they appear to be wrong.

The app page itself illustrates that it auto saves. I accept that maybe that function doesn’t work currently but this breakdown seems misleading.

He said you lose the save when you switch to another app on your phone without closing the game

 

[Comandr]

He said you lose the save when you switch to another app on your phone without closing the game

Maybe the problem was on his end. In my in depth testing of 5 minutes I went full grandma and opened every app on my phone, switched around a bunch and it was still updating the auto save with the latest frame and current timestamps.

 

[SportsFan581]

Apple's got that "I feel like a fresh lawsuit" energy going on.