According to Gizmodo, the iPhone will soon get an official Mega Drive/Genesis emulator, utilising the in-app purchase paradigm to purchase games and allowing it to function like the virtual console featured on current generation gaming consoles.
This is great news to iPhone gamers, who had to previously had to resort to Jailbreaking and buggy homebrew emulators in order to get their retro gaming fix. It remains to be seen which games are released and what the release schedule will be, and how users will react to the predicted $3 to $6 price range for games. At this stage it looks like the app will be free to download and will come bundled with Space Harrier 2, so that should at least placate some of the “Nothing over $0.99″ crowd.
Also of interest will be how the controls are handled, as many of the homebrew emulators suffered due to the non-tactile nature of the touch screen controls. Whatever the case, I’ll be checking it out on launch (rumoured to be mid February) and hoping in vain they’ll release Shadowrun so I can finally commit to never getting any work done ever.
