Delta: An Android App to Emulate Nintendo and Other System-Independent Controllers with High-Resolution Screen Embeddings

The app will be the same as the one arriving with AltStore PAL, according to Testut. The app features on-screen buttons that change their layout and appearance to match whatever system you’re emulating.

The app will mark the first significant and officially sanctioned game emulator for the iPhone since Apple began allowing them, with wide-ranging console emulation from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo 64 (and even the Sega Genesis, for when you want to play those games that Nintendon’t).

It supports Bluetooth controllers like Xbox One Series S or PS5 controllers, too, and the app lets you customize their layout or set extra buttons for things like quick save states (essentially letting you pause a game whenever you want and load it up from that point later) or fast-forward through an old-school game’s all-too-often unskippable cutscenes or endless stream of startup logos.

Some Nintendo input methods, like the microphone controls, are quirks that Delta works with.

Delta has other touches, too, such as automatically grabbing the box art for your games and the ability to customize that art using its built-in database or your own custom images, and users can import controller skins or make their own. It supports Nintendo consoles like the N64, as well as the SNES, for up to four players.

The Apple Store of Retro Game Emulators is a Misdemeanor to Nintendo, Yuzu, Pizza Emulator, and Game Boy Advance

Apple loosened its App Store restrictions to allow retro game emulators onto its store earlier this month. The main stipulation in its rule change was that the emulation apps comply with “all applicable laws.” (Nintendo has a history of cracking down on sites that traffic in ROMs, which are playable software versions of its hardware game cartridges.) In its store, Apple forbids copycats. “Don’t just copy the popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app’s name or UI and pass it off as your own.” The version of the work of another person was in the case of iGBA.

Notably, Testut’s app isn’t new. He released the original AltStore alternative to jailbreaking in the 1.0 version of Delta. The app has been on the App Store for over five years and will be one of the most polished iPhone emulations, due to the extensive feature set and bug fixes.

Video game emulators are having a hard time. Back in March it was Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, which got shut down following a lawsuit from Nintendo. Pizza Emulators, another Nintendo emulator, disappeared around the same time. A Game Boy Advance application called iGBA became a popular app last weekend after Apple loosened restrictions on retro game emulators in the App Store. The organization didn’t make it through the day.

Testut says that the developer responsible for iGBA emailed him “and personally apologized for the mess …They didn’t expect this all to happen so quickly,” Testut says.

Playing Old Games: How Much Are Old Games Worth? Testut’s Point of View on the Future of Game Development and the Game Industry

As the game industry grapples with saving older titles at risk of disappearing forever, emulators like Testut’s are likely to be more in demand all the time. Testut says that it has happened many times that IP owners are resistant to changing to newer hardware and preventing later generations from playing them. It is recommended that old games can be played again decades later, like playing old audio recordings.