The next gaming-capable handheld device is the iPhone?

You betcha. The news that gadget freaks like us were all waiting to hear ever since Apple’s sleek new fetish object was unveiled was, of course: will it play games? Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of a team of coders, we can now report that, indeed, it is possible to play games on a hacked iPhone, and that performance has improved immensely since the first beta was released in August. These aren’t just quick and-dirty mobile games, either; this is full speed emulation of classic NES titles with sound. That’s right, nervegas and the other kids behind the NES.app project have built a fully-featured NES emulator based on the multiplatform InfoNES core.

“Yes,” you might ask, “but how are we supposed to control it?”

Well, therein lies the genius of this emulator. Faced with the larger-than-average screen real estate of the iPhone, the designers realized they could sacrifice some of the play area to include touch-screen controls in either landscape or portrait orientation. As you can see from the actual screenshots below, this layout is graphically appealing and maintains the retro look of the old NES controller, to boot! However, without the familiar ‘click’ from buttons on the original controller, input does admittedly feel a bit wonky on the iPhone. Precise control is a little bit iffy and will occasionally glitch when too many commands are entered at once. However, overall we found the experience highly playable, particularly for less input-sensitive games like RPGs.

The catch (and there is always a catch) is that you must have a jailbreak-enabled phone which allows applications to be copied over and run on the iPhone. This hack is the only way to get unauthorized software such as the NES emulator to work, and unfortunately this can result in voiding your warranty with Apple. Still, if you are comfortable with the homebrew scene and want to enjoy the benefits of the open-source modding community, you can find out how to hack your phone using this excellent guide.

If you already have the necessary equipment (a hacked iPhone) and a yearning to play some old-school classics on that shiny beast, why not head over to the NES.app developers’ official site and grab the 188kb download.