PlayStation Portable emulator PPSSPP lands on Apple App Store

While Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld has been dead for a long time, its games are finding new life on an unlikely platform. 

PPSSPP, arguably the most popular PlayStation Portable emulator, is now available on Apple's official App Store. The app is a free and open-source emulator that was developed by Henrik Rydgård, who also worked on the Dolphin emulator. 

PPSSPP has been available for Apple's mobile products for a few years at this point, but before today, installing the emulator required either jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad or sideloading it through methods like the AltStore. The emulator has also been available on other platforms, including Android, Linux, Windows, and macOS, for years.

While PPSSPP is primarily a PSP emulator, it also includes a built-in "homebrew" store filled with fan-made games and ports such as Cave Story and Breakout. Gamers can also save their own PSP games as .ISO or .CSO files and transferred to the iPhone or iPad. Note that no PSP games are included with the emulator.

The emulator includes several quality-of-life features like save states, resolution upscaling, and more. PPSSPP also supports MFi controllers (like the Backbone One, available on Amazon for $99.99) out-of-the-box.

Emulation on iOS and iPadOS has grown rapidly since Apple added rules allowing emulators to the App Store. While some emulators of dubious quality (and some that are outright deceptions) initially popped up, excellent emulators like Delta rocketed to the top of the App Store's rankings over the past few months. 

The future for emulation on iOS keeps getting brighter. 

You can download PPSSPP on iOS and iPadOS here.