RetroArch and PPSSPP join growing list of retro game emulators for iPhone

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Those who want to play classic retro games on iPhone or iPad have a couple of new options. RetroArch can emulate a wide variety of consoles, while PPSSPP is a PlayStation Portable emulator.

There’s been something of a flood of these since Apple dropped its ban on them.

New iPhone retro game emulators to try

Apple once block developers from releasing retro game emulators for iPhone. But in early April the company updated the App Store guidelines to allow this type of software. And that opened the floodgates.

Recent weeks brought the launch of Delta, an emulator for Game Boy and other Nintendo consoles. And Gamma brings original PlayStation titles to iOS.

RetroArch

RetroArch from Daniel De Matteis joined the list on Wednesday. It supports a simply enormous collection of consoles, including Atari 2600, Commodore VIC-20, Sega Genesis, Sony PlayStation and many, many more.

“RetroArch is a free, ad-free, open source, and cross platform frontend/framework for emulators, game engines, video games, media players, and other applications, “said De Matteis. “Supported systems come in the form of libretro cores.”

It supports external game controllers, and saving game state, plus it doesn’t track users in any way.

PPSSPP – PSP Emulator

Developer Henrik Rydgård says, “PPSSPP is the original and only PSP emulator for mobile devices.” And it’s now in the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

It can save game state, and promises high-resolution gaming.

It’s free and contains no ads or tracking. Plus there’s PPSSPP Gold, which Rydgård says has all the same features as the free version and “also has a nice gold icon and makes you feel good about supporting the project’s development.”

Ed Hardy

Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.

That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)

Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.