Shortly after Apple relaxed its App Store guidelines that now allow retro game emulators to be published on the App Store for its iOS and tvOS platforms, we see new emulators popping up on the App Store from time to time. Recently, the Delta Emulator has been officially launched in the App Store, and the developers of the multi-platform emulator have confirmed their entry into the App Store soon.
By email to iMore, Provenance project lead Joseph Mattiello said his team is working on a release. He further stated, “I need to research these new rules before submitting to the App Store and to improve some quality of life issues. Also, I need to change some things to comply with the App Store rules, such as mentioning “beta”.”
While Delta’s emulator restricts users to playing games from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Game Boy (Color), Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS, the matter with Source is a little different.
For those who are unaware, source is a multi-platform game emulator that can emulate games from popular consoles such as NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS, and even Atari, Sega and PlayStation games. The team also confirmed that they are working on support for SEGA Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation 2 and others.
However, one important thing to note is that it is considered a violation of copyright law if you download SEGA, Sony and Nintendo game titles, even if you own them, especially for Nintendo games. Therefore, to use games from these platforms originally, you need to look for free and independently developed games available online.
Mattiello and his team have been working on the source since 2016, and the emulator is already available through AltStore and other sideloading methods, but it requires users to use an Apple developer account, which is not an option, a normal user will do only to install an app.
It is not clear when the source emulator will first hit the App Store, as Matillo was not clear on the launch date of the emulator on the App Store.