How to Play Classic Video Games on Your iPhone for Free (Without Jailbreaking)

27.04.2024 - 11:37 / howtogeek.com / Tim Brookes

The days of jailbreaking your iPhone to play emulated games are over. Here’s how easy it is to play retro games on iOS and iPadOS, for free.

Emulators Are Now (Officially) Available for iPhone

In April 2024 Apple sent an email to developers informing them of several changes to what is and isn’t permissible on the App Store. This included allowing “retro game console emulator apps” for the first time. Before the change, installing emulators required a jailbreak or building and sideloading the app yourself.

Though emulators are legal, the games they run are a point of contention. It is illegal to download ROMs for games that you do not own. Downloading or ripping ROMs for titles that you do own is a grey area. You are responsible for following the laws in your part of the world.

Emulators you download from the App Store will not come with any copyrighted materials. That means no ROMs will be included, so you’ll need to source and import games on your own time. Any additional files required to make a platform run (like BIOS images) will also need to be provided by you, legally.

So why the sudden change? Apple is probably jumping before it is pushed. The EU has mandated that the iPhone open up to third-party App Stores, so Apple may be trying to avoid future problems. There’s also nothing inherently illegal about emulators, even though big players like Nintendo are vehemently opposed.

How to Play Classic Nintendo Games With Delta

Speaking of Nintendo, the first emulator to arrive on the App Store is Delta, a multiple system emulator that includes cores for the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy (Color), Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. There are also plans to support the Sega Genesis in a future update.

Delta brings together many different emulation projects like Nestopia, Snes9x, mupen64plus, and melonDS under one simple application. The project is a spiritual successor to GBA4iOS, an emulator you may have heard of if you’ve dabbled in the iOS emulation scene before.

You can download Delta from the App Store for iPhone, though it also works on iPad and macOS. As per Apple’s guidelines, the emulator doesn’t come with anything in playable form. You’ll need to supply your own ROMs, which you can transfer using a variety of methods.

Transfer Games via Cloud Storage

You can transfer ROMs easily using a cloud storage platform of your choice. First, upload your ROMs in their native (unzipped) format, making a note of the location. Tap on the plus “+” icon in the top-right corner of the Delta app and select “Files” from the pop-up menu.

Now navigate to wherever your ROMs are located. iOS lets you access local files, the contents of iCloud, Dropbox, and even some remote storage locations