Turns out you can play Atari 2600 games with an Atari controller on iPhone

By Oliver Haslam
published

Atari 2600
Atari 2600 (Image credit: Wikipedia)

What you need to know

  • The Atari 2600 was amazing back in the early 1970s.
  • You can play Atari 2600 games on your iPhone right from Safari.
  • And you can even use an Atari 2600 controller to do it.

If you're as old as me you're probably very aware of the Atari 2600. It was the first game console I ever saw and it was awesome. Primitive by today's standards of course, but still amazing back then. Somehow it continues to amazing in 2020 as well after I was alerted to the fact you can play Atari 2600 games on an iPhone. Using an Atari 2600 controller, no less.

YouTube channel "Will it Work?" is run by Niles Mitchell and he's been doing great work by taking weird things and making them connect to iPhones and Macs. I've shared some of his videos before and this latest one hit me right in the feels. Check it out.

In this video I will attempt to connect an original, 1977 manufactured Atari CX10 joystick to the iPhone and play modern iOS apps as well as Atari 2600 games.

There were hoops to jump through, of course, but this thing works. And now I also know that I can play Atari 2600 games right from within a browser window as well. That's the rest of my day lost to nostalgia!

When you've watched this latest video, be sure to check out some similar videos. You're going to love them!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.