iPhone and iPod touch nab SNES emulation

You've waited, you've watched, and now your wildest dreams are about to come true. That's right, someone has coded a native SNES emulator for the iPhone / iPod touch. Right now, the project is still in the beta / testing phase, but you can be assured that in the very near future, your sweaty hands will be smudging all over a virtual controller during heart-pounding games of F-Zero, Killer Instinct, and Super Metroid. If you absolutely can't wait one more second (Paul Miller, we're looking at you), slip the developers a donation and they'll break you off some beta test action. If you're the patient type, you can enjoy the video after the break, and sit tight till the app goes public.

[Thanks, Daniel]

[Bassir @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:08PM]

It's too impractical to play these things on that touch screen.

[Juice Daddy @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:34AM]

especially since it can only take two inputs at a time ...

[Justin Nolan @ Jan 23rd 2008 10:11AM]

Juice Daddy, I'm pretty sure that's not true. In PocketGuitar you can play full cords, which involves multiple fingers plus strumming.

[Juice Daddy @ Jan 24th 2008 9:33AM]

citation?

as far as I was aware, the touch screen could only register two points at a time...


perhaps this is only limited depending on what software is running?

[Luis @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:11PM]

YES!Is there anything my lovely iPhone can't do? Next up XBOX 360 emulation (yes i know thats impossible but I can dream cant I?)

[blinkcowz182 @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:45PM]

It'll be easy to do 10 years after they stop making games for it. Emulating the hardware of the 360 will be mindless on hardware 10 years from now.

[DWells55 @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:26AM]

I'm going to have disagree with that seeing how the PS2 still isn't fully emulated and it's nearly 10 years old.

[ethana2 @ Jan 23rd 2008 4:56AM]

That would be about the PS2 operating system. 400MHz MIPS and 32MB of RAM is nothing...

[damien @ Jan 30th 2008 6:43PM]

how do i put it on my i pod touch
[e-mail]

[Nessus @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:12PM]

I'm assuming this will only be available to liberated iphone/touch(s), although I desperately hope im wrong.

[Paul @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:14PM]

Touching the buttons makes playing anything other than turn based RPGs kinda impossible.

[404error @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:18PM]

Or does it?

[Simon @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:41PM]

Yes.

[Hafk @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:17PM]

How the hell would you play contra on that?

Answer: you can't.

If you want SNES emulation, get it on your DS or PSP, it is much easier.

[Eric @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:08PM]

I've got the SNES emulator on my R4 for DS and it runs like absolute crap. There's a lot of weird issues where the background will move to the foreground and completely cover what I'm trying to do. Is there a newer/better version I should be aware of?

[mike @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:21PM]

Worst Music Ever!

[Ricochet @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:33PM]

Yes... interesting that the credits at the end list the music as "Nirvana - Smells like teen spirit". I remember that song sounding somewhat better!

And I love that they wrote "béta" tester, makes it sounds very exotic indeed.

Having said all that, I still want this app if it works well enough, there are plenty of games on the SNES you could play with iPhone controls - just avoid the high-action ones.

[AndrewNeo @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:41PM]

Ricochet: Especially because Beta is a Greek letter (β) and I don't believe they had the silly accent things back then.

[Mark @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:00AM]

@Ricochet
Exotic? You mean foreign :p.

[ThePengwin @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:04AM]

Someone needs to learn their percentages....

[dazepro @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:06PM]

The song isn't Nirvana it is Fort Minor, one of the head singer's from Linkin Park!

[waiownsyou @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:26PM]

The NES emulator already lags on my iPhone... I'd hate to think what SNES will do :(

[Billy @ Jan 23rd 2008 2:16AM]

No shit man, there's no way the iPhone can do SNES emulation.

[Joachim Bengtsson @ Jan 23rd 2008 4:47AM]

The NES emulator isn't very good, performance wise. The iPhone's rocking 600MHz, so it should be doing both NES and SNES emulation fine, especially considering the PSP does SNES emulation smoothly at 233MHz (Okay, I know they're completely different CPUs, but still, the iPhone is /powerful/.)

[Paulie @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:32PM]

There are PDA game controllers out there for use with PDAs and smartphones. Perhaps somebody will hack one to work with the iPhone.

[matthew @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:33PM]

you know how hard people press the buttons on their controllers when they get into a game? i think there's gonna be some broken iphones

[cmonkey @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:36PM]

Hence Chrono Trigger ;)

Anyway, I wonder if its snes9x based.

[tande @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:53PM]

Anyone know what theme that is he's using?

Looks like one I had before but I can't remember the name.

[Spyder @ Jan 22nd 2008 11:58PM]

If you mean the song, it's called "Remember The Name" by "Fort Minor"

[tande @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:18AM]

I was refering to the SummerBoard Theme he was using (assuming its SummerBoard) actually but thanks for the song info, I was thinking about googling it but you saved me the time.

[webon @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:25AM]

I'm almost killing my palm TX's buttons because of this, but I hardly play with the screen, thats not very intelligent I think

[Neil @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:41AM]

love the Chrono Triggah :)

[Nerdelphia @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:02AM]

Starfox in this thing sounds pretty damn tricky. Good luck with that one hahaha.

[Dolemite @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:47AM]

Hehe, man, I was just playing Chrono Trigger like five minutes ago. I am also trying to get through Final Fantasy III as well.

[katakata @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:54AM]

fake!!! photochopped!!

[ethana2 @ Jan 23rd 2008 5:02AM]

I still say we should call our app the gnu Professional Image Manipulation Program...
All about marketing. Make your product a verb, you win.

That image was PIMPed!

..What does かたかた mean? Did you mean かたかな? (you do seem prone to misspelling ;)

[encoree @ Jan 23rd 2008 2:30AM]

It's ActRaiser on the screen, my first game on the Japanese SNES (Super Famicom) !

[Paul @ Jan 23rd 2008 2:37AM]

Awesome

If you can find an SNES game that only requires you push one button at a time...

[ethana2 @ Jan 23rd 2008 5:08AM]

"If you can find an SNES game that only requires you push one button at a time..."

.....then... what? You could play them on other devices too?

[satan\\\'s aunt @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:38AM]

There are number of very good turned-based strategy games and some RPGs that could (potentially) be played without any hassle.

For example the "Romance of The Three Kingdoms" series.

Or Final Fantasy 3.

[MichaelQ @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:11AM]

You should definitely mention that it is Chrono Trigger in the picture.

[atticus @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:26AM]

Okay I spelled béta because in Dutch that's how you spell that so I got mixed up with the English word that is just plain beta.
And SNES emulation is definately possible, I'll try to make a new video today with my new camera that is way better quality.
About the song, I have put an EDIT in there that explains that it's another song ;)

[satan\\\'s aunt @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:29AM]

There are number of very good turned-based strategy games and some RPGs that could (potentially) be played without any hassle.

For example the "Romance of The Three Kingdoms" series.

Or Final Fantasy 3.

[BaseVilliN @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:54PM]

...as long as you don't use Sabin...

[OneLove @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:34AM]

100% crappy song.

[Eric @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:08PM]

Whoever was controlling the demo was the worst F-Zero racer - ever!

[atticus @ Jan 23rd 2008 2:10PM]

thanks :P

[Eric @ Jan 23rd 2008 2:22PM]

lol! were you even trying? you went straight into the wall

[atticus @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:12PM]

well actually no, cause its hard to control a camera+a game at the same time :)
plus the contols weren't working that well in that version :)
I have posted a new vid though! version 0.4.1, you can check it out if you like!

[derrick @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:17PM]

now a wii emulator would be pretty awesome. imagine playing cow racing on an iphone? with the sensors that might be possible. other games wouldnt though, almost all others in fact.... but i can dream, can't i?