Update [Thu 21st Nov, 2024 10:45 GMT]: The programmer Rich Whitehouse has revealed on social media that BigPEmu — the Atari Jaguar emulator he created — will be arriving on the App Store later today (November 21st), after being officially approved for iOS/iPadOS. It will be priced at $9.99.
Speaking about the port online, Whitehouse said regarding its development, "I've dumped over a grand into making this port, not including labor, and it would be nice to recoup at least some of that."
As a result, he has asked his followers to "please help me spread the message and create as many upfront purchases as possible" in the hopes that it might lead to some organic exposure for the app and prevent it from dying "slowly in its crib" like most iOS software.
We'll update the article once the store pages are live.
Original Article [Fri 27th Sep, 2024 12:45 BST]: Programmer and Jaguar fan Rich Whitehouse – who is also Head of Digital Conservation The Video Game History Foundation – has revealed that his iOS Jaguar emulator is almost ready for public release.
Whitehouse showed off a screenshot of the emulator in action, running the iconic Tempest 2000, one of the console's most beloved games.
He has also confirmed that the release is very close indeed. "[There's] still lots of work to be done," he says on Twitter. "But I’m hoping to have this ready to go sometime next month."
We've seen a flood of retro game emulators appear on iOS since Apple relaxed its stance a few months ago. Multi-system emulator Delta is arguably the most famous, but we've also had individual emulators for Saturn, 3DS and PSP.
The Jaguar launched in 1993 and was seen as Atari's final throw of the dice in the home console arena. It went up against the equally ill-fated 3DO, and both machines struggled by the time the PS1 and Saturn arrived at the close of 1994.
Despite its commercial failure, there's still a lot of love out there for the Jag – not to mention some decent games.