Original PlayStation games get a little more mobile (but not more legal), thanks to a new emulator for Android phones.
While PSOne games are available for gamers with PSPs, they have yet to officially come to platforms like smartphones and devices like the iPad. However, a new emulator app for the Android phone lets users play copies of original PlayStation games, provided they don’t have a problem with videogame piracy.
The emulator, “PSX4Droid” is currently selling for $5.99 on the Android Market. It’s designed to work with the higher-end models of the phone, and it sounds pretty impressive. The emulator will work with a number of file formats and is even compatible with a WiiMote, though its frame rate does sometimes drop with certain games. According to Engadget, which spent some time playing games with PSX4Droid, the app largely delivers a great gaming experience.
The app’s existence seems to float in a nebulous legal area where the application itself isn’t illegal, but the files it runs are. While the emulator allows users to play games without a secondary device (nor does it require a person to jailbreak their phone), the ROM files necessary to play these games violate copyright law. That means that there’s no getting around the fact that you have to commit piracy in order to play PSOne games on your Android.
