Apple iPhone users can now play Nintendo games, including Super Smash Bros. Melee, thanks to an emulation application for Jailbroken devices.
Called DolphiniOS, the emulation application is a port of Dolphin, the popular GameCube and Wii emulator, which has been available for Mac, Windows and Linux since June 2016.
The free and open-source video game console emulator has appeared on Apple devices in the past on previous Jailbreaks, with DolphiniOS marking its first use on iOS 13.
Able to emulate Nintendo GameCube and Wii titles on iPhones running iOS 12 and up, the initial build is available right now from the OatMealDome repo.
First impressions from the Jailbreak SubReddit are positive, with many looking forward to future updates which will improve the stability of the platform.
According to US law, obtaining a digital version of the original game is legal as long as the user as a purchased copy.
Since Dolphin itself contains no copyrighted code from Nintendo, the platform is not in breach of copyright.
Games can be added to the emulation platform by downloading ROMs of the games you already own.
The Dolphin Forums and the Dev Team specifically call out and discourage piracy, to avoid ‘inducing or facilitating copyright infringement’.
First created back in 2003 as a closed source program, the Dolphin emulator first went open-source in 2008.
Over 200 individual people have worked on the emulation platform, with a complete list available on GitHub.
