This 3DS Emulator Will Let You Play On iPhone

Summary Emulator Folium allows access to 3DS games on iPhone 15 Pro or newer.

Folium will be available for $4.99 on the App Store.

Nintendo has a history of cracking down on emulators, forcing popular services like Citra and Yuzu to shut down.

It’s been more than a year since the Nintendo 3DS eShop shut down, but players will soon be able to access their library of 3DS games from their iPhone thanks to a new emulator. Mimicking the 3DS's iconic design, it will offer a split-screen view for players to dive into the Nintendo games on the go, putting well-loved games like Mario Kart 7 on Apple's smart devices.

A preview video of the Folium emulator, re-shared by Centro LEAKS on X (formerly Twitter), shows the popular kart racing game running smoothly on the iPhone, with the player using an off-screen controller to steer the karts. Once released, Folium will offer handheld emulation of Nintendo 3DS, DS, and Game Boy Advance games for those with an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. The app will cost $4.99 on the App Store and will have full support for multiple controllers and native audio input and output upon release.

Centro LEAKS noted that the model of iPhone the app runs on is particularly important. Unfortunately, anyone with an iPhone model older than the iPhone 15 Pro won’t be able to use Folium to its full extent, as the 15 Pro’s premium specs are needed for the emulator to run smoothly. An exact App Store release date isn’t available at the moment, despite the Folium website stating it’s available now.

Related Your Most Nostalgic Nintendo 3DS Games Are Now Dead One year after the 3DS e-store was closed, the most popular 3DS emulator, Citra, has been discontinued as a result of Nintendo’s lawsuit against Yuzu.

Nintendo Is Known For Cracking Down On Emulators

The release of this emulator is coming at an interesting time, considering Nintendo’s proclivity to squash emulators of its games. Just this year, Nintendo filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Tropical Haze, the developer behind the popular Switch emulators Yuzu and Citra, forcing both services to shut down entirely. Others have sprung up in their place, though the sites’ futures continue to hang precariously in wait for another lawsuit.

Legally, emulators are fair use and aren’t infringing upon a video game company’s IP, but sourcing the games for the emulators is where the lawsuits find grounds. Nintendo historically won a $12 million settlement against two ROM sites in 2018 and was granted another $2.1 million in damages for a suit in 2021. Providing the code for these emulators is often where the legal line becomes blurry – and where most sites find themselves in hot water.

Nintendo targeted Yuzu and Citra for including instructions on how to pull source code from players' copies of the games being emulated. The Japanese video game company claimed this allowed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to be pirated before its release, costing the publisher millions. But Folium may have learned from the recent filing, as its FAQ section states, “Games and system files must be dumped from a console or handheld you own.” By not providing the instructions to source the code from owned games, this Nintnedo 3DS emulator may be safe from legal action — for now.

Sources: Folium, CentroLEAKS/X