

Apple Approves Nintendo Emulator for iPhone - jzdziarski
http://www.zdziarski.com/projects/nescaline/

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davepeck
Okay, I ponied up out of curiosity. _Do not download this app_. It does not
work as advertised. It is slow, buggy (even the table display on the home
screen has impressively bad rendering glitches) and, worst of all, it is not
capable of loading any ROM files I tried it with -- things that all other NES
emulators load fine.

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modeless
I was able to load several roms with no trouble (though the UI could use some
work). The performance was fine (3GS here) and the accuracy of graphics and
gameplay seemed good, but the sound was very glitchy. Hopefully it can be
fixed in an update before Apple boots it from the store.

Ultimately the biggest problem with this is that the touchscreen just isn't as
good as physical buttons for the kinds of games that the NES had.

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davepeck
I'm quite curious how you got the ROMs working. They download fine for me, but
then report themselves corrupt. They are not.

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modeless
I loaded the ROMs from my mac mini via the web sharing feature of OS X
(Apache). All the ROMs I tried worked the first time. Some ROM formats may not
be supported; the ones I used had a .nes file extension.

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jsz0
The folks who previously submitted NES emulators, and were rejected, must be
more than a little annoyed right now. At $6.99 this developer is going to be
making some pretty good money especially with the wave of free PR. It would be
interesting to see if this app has some extra layer(s) of sand-boxing or other
security that made Apple willing to accept it. From a PR standpoint it would
be quite clever for Apple to just start accepting a lot of these taboo apps
and they'll look like the great hero of the people acknowledging their
mistakes and moving forward. Crazier things have happened.

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YuriNiyazov
This is completely speculative, of course, but the following explanation makes
sense: a little while ago it came out that the iPod Touch is being positioned
as an Apple gaming platform (lots of developers were writing games on the
platform anyway, and Apple decided to roll with it). Thus, Apple essentially
entered the hand-held gaming market, which means that it is now in direct
competition with Nintendo. Allowing Nintendo games gives them a competitive
advantage.

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grhino
Is there a Nintendo approved way to get ROMs on the iPhone? Does Nintendo have
no legal recourse to this?

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steveitis
I don't think it matters if Nintendo approves.

There is a ton of 'homebrew' for the NES that contains no proprietary Nintendo
code, and I doubt that any part of the 'hardware' being emulated is protected
intellectual property.

A case can easily be made that it is designed with home brew ROMs in mind.
Despite the obvious fact that it will inevitably be used for copyright
infringement.

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pilif
It's already gone from the appstore.

That was quick :-)

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credo
that was quick :) Anyway, I'm guessing that zdziarski had always intended to
target the jailbroken-phone market and didn't really expect the app to be sold
in the app store.

What is equally interesting is that the app had already made it to the top 100
grossing list, before it got pulled out.

I looked at the itunes top 100 grossing list 2-3 hours ago (and still have
that window open). On that list, Nescaline is ranked at 82 :)

~~~
jgrahamc
Perhaps the author saying on his web site

 _NESv3 continues to be available in Cydia. Apple's draconian and anti-
competitive AppStore practices is sadly why jailbreaking will always remain a
necessity._

is why Apple might be not too happy with the developer.

I know Jonathan from his anti-spam days and he's a good developer, but it's
always surprised me that he's tried to make money out of Apple while at the
same time dissing them so much. If he's selling his app for $6.99 he's putting
$2 in the pocket of someone he believes is evil for every copy sold.

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TimothyFitz
Did the rules change to allow running code not bundled with the application or
did this slip through Apple's review process?

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wmf
Sounds like Apple made an exception since NES games probably aren't much of a
threat to the App Store or iPhone security.

~~~
thristian
One of the first iPhone jail-break systems depended on a vulnerability in
Safari's TIFF loader, and TIFF files aren't supposed to contain any executable
code at all. Why would NES games be any different?

~~~
stcredzero
Ugh. Why would _any_ software be different? Please Google "buffer overflow."

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GavinB
Why hasn't Nintendo licensed or coded one of these and put up all of their
games for 99 cents each?

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thristian
Because they make much more money selling them on the Wii Virtual Console, I
guess.

Nintendo's attitude toward their classic games is much like Disney's attiitude
towards their classic films - have a small release, generate nostalgic hype
for a platform, then lock it away again until the next platform comes out and
the cycle repeats. Of course, nobody much wants to play the non-classic games
anyway.

~~~
whughes
I have to disagree. Nintendo's 'modern' games are wildly successful by every
standard.

~~~
gloob
Out of curiosity, when was the last time that Nintendo launched a new game
franchise?

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nailer
Whenever Doctor Kawashima Brain Training, or Professor Layton came out (wife
owns a DSi).

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Keyframe
expect Nintendo's lawyers shitstorm over this, if it goes through.

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taitems
Hey Jonathan, your borderless image class is empty/pointing nowhere.

 _< img src="buyapp.png" class="borderless"/>_

