The whole premise is that you distribute a clean emulation platform and have the users torrent the roms from somewhere else. Trying to distribute them non-anonymously is a recipe for some trouble.
Sounds like preparation for commercial "Archives" apps under respective console brands than about legalizing ROM downloads. Perhaps that Nintendo lawsuit story from while back was a bit of foreshadowing.
Agreed, the reporting on this has been so poor. The wording of the rules and how we know Apple has enforced past similar rules makes it pretty likely to me this is for apps similar to the n64/snes app on the Switch Nintendo gives to their online service subscribers - "official" emulators with pre-packaged licensed ROMs or integrated licensed ROM downloads, not generic emulators loading loose ROM files from wherever.
Nintendo could even just offer iOS versions of those Switch apps (not that I expect this, but maybe??) under these rules.
The emulator could have download links to some public domain ROMs. The open question is if it allows the user to also add ROMs from their own file system or cloud drive. We won’t know until an emulator is submitted for review.
Taking the Swift Playground app as precedent, I would assume that you could very likely submit an emulator app that allows users to “develop” and “test” their own game “projects” inside it.
Apple would very likely counter by picking a nit about the distinction between ROMs (object code) and source code, though.
But there’s a (to me, quite pleasing) counter to this: support import of / repo sync with game “source code” projects… where the source code can just be ASM, and so a disassembly of an existing published game will work just fine.
This tactic is would push the responsibility for preventing IP theft off onto source code hosting services (e.g. GitHub… but self-hosted ones do exist, wink wink); and I think Apple’s lawyers would be pretty satisfied with that arrangement.
> Apple would very likely counter by picking a nit about the distinction between ROMs (object code) and source code, though.
There are iOS apps in the App Store allowing you to run unmodified Linux i386 binaries, so I think that ship has sailed.
Of course Apple is only very weakly guided by precedent in their application review policies, as far as I can tell, so I don't think anybody can predict what they'll do in this case.
The wording of the rule change seems to imply that the games must be downloaded from the app (perhaps disallowing sideloading), which Apple would not allow for games that the app developer does not own the rights to.
This seems more catered towards a Sega, Namco, or similar “Retro Game Collection” service, versus a third-party “drop in your own ROMs” app.
Again reminds me that jailbreaking is still useful in 2024. Apple tried to close the gap by stealing many of the best features but they can not give up full control not due to security but always due to greed.
The trick is understanding that many Apple users like that tradeoff. You’re seeing people as helpless and they’re just not. It’s a great curated closed ecosystem.
Now, maybe people shouldn’t be allowed to make those tradeoffs, for their own good. But Apple owners are willing participants in a deal.
> Now, maybe people shouldn’t be allowed to make those tradeoffs
They are free to make those tradeoffs. If people want to keep using the Apple app store, or walled garden, or whatever, that's fine.
What instead people want to allow, is for other people to be able to use the products that they own in whatever way that they choose.
> It’s a great curated closed ecosystem
As long as other people can choose to use their Apple devices that they own in the way that they prefer, then that's fine.
Keep using that ecosystem. Other people should be free to use their devices however they wish though.
> You’re seeing people as helpless and they’re just not.
Users are not able to help themselves to use their own Apple devices how they want. In that sense yes, they are helpless to use their own Apple device in a way that they prefer.
If people want to control their own devices they should be allowed to do so.
> good-guys-only crypto back door
Or, how about instead of that, the people who want to stay in the wall garden are allowed to do that, and other people who disagree are also allowed to use their own devices however they want.
Uhm, the freedom of choice exists, I mean, I use Apple Devices, the problem is that the walled garden is that, a Walled Garden, not an easy-to-enter/leave garden, it is specifically made to keep users in without having them leave. I'm guessing while you are on the anti-free use stance, you also don't like the Right to Repair laws being passed. In the context of the emulators, Delta is an emulator that can only be used after what's just breaking the developer system, these weird workarounds shouldn't be needed, because YOU own the device, and Apple shouldn't be able to stop you from adding software, at least legally, onto YOUR device. This kind of strategy works on Android, with the user being able to download apps from the Google Play Store (or whatever other flavor of app store your phone comes in), however still allowing the user to sideload apps from APK files, usually downloaded from other sites, with only security risk notifications.
It's a reminder that all of Apple's protestations about the apocalypse happening if they open up their platform (Flash games, iMessage, no native file manager app until 2017), are really just cover for Apple to promote Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud.
Meanwhile on Android, transfer some files to local storage, point your emulation app to that director, and that's it.
That's right, it's not like that. Nintendo sues when they know they can win, as in the Yuzu debacle where keys were extracted and distributed in order for the emulator to work. There's nothing like that necessary for NES, SNES, or even (as far as I know) N64 or Wii. So no, Nintendo would not sue.
Dolphin ships with a bunch of keys in the source code[0]. So do almost every other emulators for any console from 6/7th gen consoles (ps3, xbox360, gamecube), see delroth's post on the matter here[1]. It's really not that simple - jurisdiction matters a lot, and also Nintendo's own priorities.
Nintendo will not need to sue because they know that the only way Apple will ever allow a NES, SNES, or N64 emulator is if Nintendo publishes it themselves and offers their own games for it through IAPs.
There is more money in having Nintendo be happy to support iPhone platform with games than having them feel insulted over a low revenue app that is also on the platform.
Nintendo generally leaves the retro, unsupported console emulators alone. mGBA, Project64, Dolphin (except for their request to take down their steam page).
Case in point: there's an endless list of Nintendo system emulators on the Play Store, many of which have been up for years with no issues. I'm sure Nintendo would prefer they weren't available on there, but as long as they don't distribute any copyrighted files or keys Nintendo can't really make a compelling case to Google that they shouldn't be allowed.
Thanks to the DMCA, they wouldn't need to make the case to google, just send a notice and they're obligated to comply. The dispute would be between the uploader and nintendo once a takedown is sent, and maybe counter-claimed.
An NES emulator, for example, would not require the inclusion of anything copyright protected, since there is no built-in system program code. An NES emulator app could instead offer the user to manually install games in the app sandbox, like ScummVM does today, with no concern for whether they were obtained legally or not.
Valve did allow RetroArch on their store, it's just Dolphin which got shot down. IIRC the distinction was that Dolphin flew close to the sun by bundling decryption keys, which gave room for Nintendo's lawyers to argue that it violated the DMCA, and Valve didn't want to die on that hill for the sake of putting a free emulator on their store.
The courts are still determining this, and it's an evolving topic, as evidenced by Nintendo's recent actions against a Switch emulator [1].
In particular, DRM circumvention technology is explicitly illegal to distribute in at least the US and EU, in a way that goes beyond regular copyright law. (The DMCA in the US has some exceptions specifically for video game archival purposes, though.)
Older games usually didn't have DRM in that sense; the concern back then was bootleg game copies, or unauthorized games [2], which the original consoles tried to detect and reject using "inverse DRM" techniques (i.e. the console authenticating the game, not the other way around). But newer games and consoles do explicitly feature DRM that might well be considered covered under the DMCA.
I don't think anyone can make qualified predictions on whether courts will find them legal at this point.
If you really believe that, I suggest running a 30 second search for "<retro console> emulator" in the Google Play store. Some of them are even paid, with Google earning their 30%.
No they won’t. Emulators are legal. If you’re thinking of Yuzu, they crossed many lines into illegality, specifically offering support for currently sold games/systems, as well as breaking encryption.
It’s not even just current games tbh, one of the things that cooked their goose was trafficking in pre-release games, which is legally relevant because it demolishes the “we’re just innocently emulating hardware/supporting homebrew” argument. Demonstrating intent is absolutely legally relevant.
Tangentially related: if anybody is looking for a good way to organize a library of retro emulators and games on their MacOS laptops/desktop computers then I recommend OpenEmu. It is designed from the ground up to look and feel like a Mac app.
For retro gaming do yourself a favor and buy a Miyoo or Anbernic. They’re cheap and give you a dedicated device and a lot of bang for the buck. Recently got a Miyoo mini+ for $56 and couldnt be happier, the gamining experience is pretty good, the screen is good, buttons are good, it is easy to back up, and so on.
The most concerning detail for me is how to acquire the rights to the ROM.
Can anyone who legally purchased it upload an emulator of a popular game to the App Store?
Only time will tell but the article notes that it is likely that this change is for publishers, not for end users.
I doubt that we are going to see many third-party emulator because of the ROM issue. To my knowledge, most consoles and all computers will have copyrightable ROMs built into the system. Given the relative scarcity of old hardware, equipment, and technical skills to image those ROMs any third-party emulator will attract copyright infringement. That is before you consider imaging software. (While there is a good chance that a person can retrieve a working mask or EPROM from an old system/cartridge, anything disk based will be much more sketchy. Not only do you need working drives to image the software, you need working media and the media cannot be copy protected.)
With the caveat that some emulators need BIOS files or decryption keys pulled from the original system, and you can't redistribute those even if you only intend to run free homebrew games.
And the last time that was tested with Connectix and Sony, Connectix won in the end but faced so many legal fees they still had to end up selling it to Sony and abandoning it.
Sure, and companies could also sue you for libel when you leave a negative product review. Life is unfair, but when talking strictly about what's legal or not, homebrew roms using an emulator that has a clean room implementations of BIOS should be perfectly acceptable for the App store legal-wise.
Why can't you redistribute those? You cannot copyright a key. If I bought a console and somehow manage to extract the keys, what exactly prevents me from distributing them?
If you're in the US, or the place you're trying to distribute to is under US jurisdiction, the DMCA is what forbids you from distributing DRM decryption keys. That's why emulators for modern systems usually don't include the keys, and make the user provide their own copy of them.
Unfortunately if you want to publish on the App Store or the Play Store then you have to play by the US rules, regardless of where you are, since Apple and Google operate out of the US.
For example, ScummVM for iOS includes the MT-32 emulator MUNT. It doesn't bundle images of the ROMs in the MT-32 (which would be illegal without license from Roland). Instead, the user can dump the ROMs from their own MT-32 or obtain them by some other means and drop them in the app data folder themselves.
>No, the new App Store policies won't get us emulators on iOS. Sadly this has been grossly misreported by basically everyone.
>The platform continues to be as unattractive for community emulators as ever.
>[...]
>Apple only wants emulators that offer in-app downloads
>[...]
>For 4.7.4: Sure, you could theoretically ship a list of the entire game library for a console. But what "universal links" would you even provide?
>And again, language reveals the intent: "software available in your app" means they don't want users to bring their own.