Okay, I ponied up out of curiosity. Do not download this app. It does not work as advertised. It is slow, buggy (even the table display on the home screen has impressively bad rendering glitches) and, worst of all, it is not capable of loading any ROM files I tried it with -- things that all other NES emulators load fine.

I was able to load several roms with no trouble (though the UI could use some work). The performance was fine (3GS here) and the accuracy of graphics and gameplay seemed good, but the sound was very glitchy. Hopefully it can be fixed in an update before Apple boots it from the store.

Ultimately the biggest problem with this is that the touchscreen just isn't as good as physical buttons for the kinds of games that the NES had.

I'm quite curious how you got the ROMs working. They download fine for me, but then report themselves corrupt. They are not.

I loaded the ROMs from my mac mini via the web sharing feature of OS X (Apache). All the ROMs I tried worked the first time. Some ROM formats may not be supported; the ones I used had a .nes file extension.

The folks who previously submitted NES emulators, and were rejected, must be more than a little annoyed right now. At $6.99 this developer is going to be making some pretty good money especially with the wave of free PR. It would be interesting to see if this app has some extra layer(s) of sand-boxing or other security that made Apple willing to accept it. From a PR standpoint it would be quite clever for Apple to just start accepting a lot of these taboo apps and they'll look like the great hero of the people acknowledging their mistakes and moving forward. Crazier things have happened.

This is completely speculative, of course, but the following explanation makes sense: a little while ago it came out that the iPod Touch is being positioned as an Apple gaming platform (lots of developers were writing games on the platform anyway, and Apple decided to roll with it). Thus, Apple essentially entered the hand-held gaming market, which means that it is now in direct competition with Nintendo. Allowing Nintendo games gives them a competitive advantage.

Is there a Nintendo approved way to get ROMs on the iPhone? Does Nintendo have no legal recourse to this?

I don't think it matters if Nintendo approves.

There is a ton of 'homebrew' for the NES that contains no proprietary Nintendo code, and I doubt that any part of the 'hardware' being emulated is protected intellectual property.

A case can easily be made that it is designed with home brew ROMs in mind. Despite the obvious fact that it will inevitably be used for copyright infringement.

It's already gone from the appstore.

That was quick :-)

that was quick :) Anyway, I'm guessing that zdziarski had always intended to target the jailbroken-phone market and didn't really expect the app to be sold in the app store.

What is equally interesting is that the app had already made it to the top 100 grossing list, before it got pulled out.

I looked at the itunes top 100 grossing list 2-3 hours ago (and still have that window open). On that list, Nescaline is ranked at 82 :)

Perhaps the author saying on his web site

NESv3 continues to be available in Cydia. Apple's draconian and anti-competitive AppStore practices is sadly why jailbreaking will always remain a necessity.

is why Apple might be not too happy with the developer.

I know Jonathan from his anti-spam days and he's a good developer, but it's always surprised me that he's tried to make money out of Apple while at the same time dissing them so much. If he's selling his app for $6.99 he's putting $2 in the pocket of someone he believes is evil for every copy sold.

Did the rules change to allow running code not bundled with the application or did this slip through Apple's review process?

Sounds like Apple made an exception since NES games probably aren't much of a threat to the App Store or iPhone security.

Sounds like this slipped through the cracks. The SDK ToS are very explicit about executable code, and very strictly prohibit anything along those lines. On that note, I'm buying it now while I can.

I certainly think NES games are a threat. Think of all the successful games on the iphone. A huge percentage of those could run on a NES, or at least dumbed down to run on one.

One of the first iPhone jail-break systems depended on a vulnerability in Safari's TIFF loader, and TIFF files aren't supposed to contain any executable code at all. Why would NES games be any different?

Ugh. Why would any software be different? Please Google "buffer overflow."

Why hasn't Nintendo licensed or coded one of these and put up all of their games for 99 cents each?

Because they make much more money selling them on the Wii Virtual Console, I guess.

Nintendo's attitude toward their classic games is much like Disney's attiitude towards their classic films - have a small release, generate nostalgic hype for a platform, then lock it away again until the next platform comes out and the cycle repeats. Of course, nobody much wants to play the non-classic games anyway.

I have to disagree. Nintendo's 'modern' games are wildly successful by every standard.

Out of curiosity, when was the last time that Nintendo launched a new game franchise?

Whenever Doctor Kawashima Brain Training, or Professor Layton came out (wife owns a DSi).

expect Nintendo's lawyers shitstorm over this, if it goes through.