The excellent Delta emulator for iOS is going to get even better: sometime soon, the app will get support for online multiplayer in Nintendo DS games, according to Delta developer Riley Testut. Testut’s post about the feature includes a video of a Mario Kart DS race between two people being played on the emulator, and it immediately transported me back to playing the game on my own DS many years ago.
Nintendo shut down the DS’s online services way back in 2014, so we asked Testut how the online services will work. “It’s based on melonDS’ online support, which connects to 3rd-party Nintendo [Wi-Fi Connection] servers (such as Kaeru, Wimmfi, AltWFC, etc),” Testut tells The Verge. “This means all 10 million+ Delta users will be able to connect to other Delta users and users on real devices who are using these 3rd-party Nintendo WFC servers.”
However, “this also means it is limited to Nintendo DS games for now, but all Nintendo DS games with Nintendo WFC are supported,” Testut says. The Delta team doesn’t plan to host its own server, so online multiplayer will be free when it’s available for everyone.
You might have to wait a bit before you can try the online multiplayer for yourself. Testut says that the feature is coming first in a beta version of Delta for Patreon subscribers. “We don’t have a public release date yet,” Testut says. While disappointing, that means you have plenty of time to get some Mario Kart DS practice in.