The Founder Of PS3 Emulator RPCS3 Is Now Working On An Android Port

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority

The PS3 emulation scene on Android is more active than ever, with the surprise appearance of the RPCS3 port aPS3e gaining considerable attention. We’ve already seen another RPCS3 port pop up from the developer behind the Nintendo Switch emulator Sudachi, but now an even more trusted source is working on a new port.

Called simply RPCS3-Android, it comes from one of the founders of the RPCS3 emulator, DH. They co-founded the project back in 2011, creating the foundations of the code base before leaving in 2016 to work on a PS4 emulator called RPCSX. Since then, the development of RPCS3 has been taken over by a team of full-time and part-time developers.

The current developers have previously stated they are not interested in working on an Android port, citing toxicity in the Android emulation community. However, they released an ARM version of the PS3 emulator in December of last year, which is much easier to port to Android.

This may finally be the year reliable PS3 emulation on Android becomes a reality.

Despite not actively working on the project, having someone with such intimate knowledge of the PS3 emulator’s code base working on an Android port should push things much further than aPS3e, which violated several open-source licenses to put out a somewhat half-baked fork of the Arm version of RPCS3. That project has now been removed from GitHub, and although development continues, the developer has broken trust with the community by asking for donations for stolen code.

There isn’t a finished build for this new RPCS3 Android port, and it may be weeks or months before one becomes publicly available. Still, this is looking like the year that PS3 emulation on Android finally becomes a reality, which is exciting for fans of emulation on Android.

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