But from there, you can connect your favorite controller, load up the appropriate ROM, and start playing, right from your Mac. There are different “cores” that you need, such as one for playing NES games, and another for playing SEGA Genesis games. And while RetroArch is technically available on M1 Macs, many emulation fans seem to enjoy OpenEmu quite a bit more. This is an all-in-one emulator solution that supports many different platforms. If you’ve looked into emulating on platforms like Android, Windows, or Linux, you have likely heard of RetroArch. And in turn, you can download one of the best emulators for M1 Mac, and enjoy pretty much all of your favorite childhood (or classic) game titles. But because the developers of the following emulators have already been creating mobile-focused emulator options, it has made transitioning to Apple Silicon a bit easier. There is even active development on a Nintendo Switch emulator, which is just absolutely bonkers. If you jump into the r/EmulationOnAndroid subreddit, you’ll see tons of people using their smartphones to emulate many of the best consoles of all time. With this in mind, let’s pivot, for a moment, over to the Android world where mobile emulation is more prominent and popular. Along with it, Rosetta 2 provided on-device translation and compatibility for any applications that were not yet updated with support for the new architecture. Essentially this told everyone that what was to be known as the Apple M1 chip was actually based on the same architecture found in your iPhone and iPad.

It was essentially a Mac Mini powered by Apple’s A12Z Bionic chipset, paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. If you think back to when Apple first announced it was beginning the transition away from Intel, the Apple Development Platform was unique. Instead, you just need to create an Apple Developer Account, then sideload the necessary apps before loading the appropriate ROMs. This is in large part due to the continued development of Delta, which doesn’t even require you to jailbreak your device. Technically, it’s been possible to emulate many of your favorite classic games on the iPhone and iPad for years.

How to use Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and Joy-Cons with Mac.

Gaming On M1 Mac: There’s A Glaring Problem.

How To Install and Play SNES Emulator on iPhone.

Backbone One Review: Next-level Mobile Gaming.

But something that has started appearing more and more now that Apple’s platform of M1-powered Macs has been available for an extended length of time is emulation gaming.

There are workarounds with the likes of cloud gaming through Xbox Game Pass or NVIDIA GeForce Now, but native gaming is still pretty limited. We’ve covered it here at AppleToolBox quite a bit, but gaming on M1 Macs, and the macOS platform on the whole, just doesn’t match up to what’s possible with Windows.

Bluestacks mac controller