By I can remember a time when emulators for the likes of Playstation and N64 were unrealistic even for a desktop machine, but thanks to rapid advancements in technology and guys like ZodTTD, having a Playstation in your pocket no longer means purchasing a PSP. In fact, Zod has already created iPhone-friendly emulators for SNES, Genesis, N64, and Playstation, and now he wants to share the love with the Android community.
With the help of the author of NESoid, Zod has been developing an Android variant of his Playstation emulator. A build was recently previewed using the GameBoid interface, and while it ran a bit sluggish, some performance improvements should make their way into the final build. When that build is released is really at the whim of the developer.
Just because ZodTTD is able to shrink down the Playstation into a tiny, mobile package, that isn’t to say you won’t need a pretty powerful handset to have this emulator running smoothly. You’re going to need something along the lines of a phone with a Cortex A8 or Snapdragon processor running Android 2.0 or higher to really get the most out of it. I like the Playstation enough, but I’ll be more excited once Zod gets to work on N64 for Android, a project he plans on tackling next.
[via Mobile Crunch]
Wow… just wow…
Wow! Not even the I wANT a nexus one! it’s not fair!!!
Not that the NES, SNES, GBA and Genesis emulators already on Android are not impressive.. but it would be truly awesome to have a reliable Playstation emulator running on Android. That would be an instant buy for me. Those games ran on CD though.. those images are going to be pretty big I would imagine.
@MarvinAndroid
Nothing your SD card(s) can’t handle.
Having spent most of my middle school career playing final fantasy 7, I never imagined I would be doing it from my phone one day. I’ll buy it ASAP
Based on my experience with the PSP (which can run PS1 games) and PC emulators:
1. CDs are ripped to ISOs and come out anywhere from 100Mb to 650Mb and average in the 350-450 range. So, you will be able to fit quite a few faves on a 16gb SD card.
2. With a total of ten buttons and a d-pad on the stock controller (not to mention the added dual analog sticks and R3/L3 buttons on the dual shock), the standard controls for most action games are going to make them virtually unplayable unless you are extremely dedicated (in which case I’d suggest getting something designed to actually play games like a PSP or DS).
3. Given #2, Slower paced RPGs/Strategy games (ex. Wild Arms, Breath of Fire III, FF Tactics, Blood Omen) and simple platform or racing games (Pandemonium, Gex, Ridge Racer, Wipeout) would be top choices for a good experience. The PS1 was underrated as a 2D games platform.
Hopefully, they’ll do some clever mapping with the controls using the tilt, touch screen (and KB for droid, et al).
Please please PLEASE give me the option of turning off motion control for games. Motion control was one of those things that seemed like a good idea, but it is annoying as hell to have to tilt the screen to control the game. I’d rather use the keyboard or trackball.
oh sweet love of android! sick! I’ve been wanting to get down on marvel vs capcom for the LONGEST!
screw PS emulator, we need scummvm
For someone that has never owned a PS, yet is a huge FF fan, I am looking forward to this as well if only so I can finally play FF7.
@ 8. James D android can already play marvel vs capcom and the full arcade version. no loading look for cps2hd in the android market. check my channel @ http://www.youtube.com/droiddoc97 i have a how to tutorial.
Yeah I have been using the PS1 emulator for HD2 and it’s so awesome to be able to do this on your phone. The post is right though, you will need a snapdragon and a good amount of Ram to run this well so N1 users will be the only benefit for now.
It’s awesome to see this happening for Android though as WinMo has been the only one currently.
I was wondering when this will be coming out :D
WOW. yay1 ill get to play legend of dragoon on my phone:-)
Maj, Android has had scummvm for ages (and it’s good).
@zenaxe
It is a problem, but there are some good solutions out there. Almost all Android devices out there have Bluetooth, which allows you to use a standard Wiimote to control games. That gives a d-pad & seven buttons – 1, 2, A, B, +, -, and Home. With a nunchuk, you gain an extra six buttons. You get the z & c buttons from the nunchuk, and using the joystick on the nunchuk instead of the wiimote d-pad allows you to map the d-pad buttons to playstation buttons.
That gives you a total of a joystick and 13 buttons. Playstation only needs 10. Or, you could use a gamegripper and get 8 buttons and a d-pad. You can then map the other 2 buttons to the volume or camera for “shoulder” buttons if you really need every single button.
Sure, it’d be nice if it worked well on a stock unit, but most of the keyboards just aren’t that great. If you have a device with a great keyboard like the Mytouch Slide, you probably do have a good enough device to play PSX games standard.
Either way, I’m really looking forward to this! If paying $40 for a wiimote is the cost for mobile GBA, NES, SNES, Genesis, Gamegear, PSX and N64 gaming then I’m willing to pay it!
i had a playstation emulator on my old htc touch running winmo 6.5 so its not impossible, with the better specs and speed of android i bet this will have a decent amount of speed to it.
How does an emulator work? As in how do you get the games on your phone?
high end phones. android 2.0 or higher… won’t be able to run this on a g1 or at least not very well… makes me wish t-mo had a high end android phone instead of this new mytouch slide garbage. wheres my t-mobile droid?!!! or something!!!
@l3reak
Only 1.5 and lower have scummvm, there is no build for 2.0+ yet
T Mobile subs the Nexus One!
This will probably run great on my droid that just got froyo and a new kernel OC’d to 1.25 GHz :D
what about halo on android
If the N900 already has the ability to use a PS3-style batwing, how long till Android jumps the same hurdle? That would obviously be the only way to play many games that use the entire controller, without sacrificing half your screen.
ENOS Lives again. Non-jailbroken iPhones cannot play this station. iPhone fanboys: YOU ARE NOT READY!
Final Fantasy VII already makes it a must buy!
When I read this page, I almost peed my pants. Ive been lookiong for this for so long. I hope they come out with this so so I can finally beat all the games I couldnt beat when I was kid and finally kick Sephiroths but.
The droid 2 ti omap at 1 ghz will run this smooth but I do believe that droid 1 will run this with minimal lagging once we all have froyo. and what about a bluetooth controler function? That would be nice.