What’s going on with PS3 for Android emulation?

The last few years have been quite tumultuous for those of us who enjoy game emulating on Android. Last year, Nintendo went after the two biggest players in Switch emulation, with the original creators of Ryujinx and Yuzu being forced to halt development. However, after the waters calmed a bit, development has picked up a bit, albeit at a slower pace.

On the flip side, we have Sony, a company that seems perfectly content with emulator development for its consoles. In fact, the problems surrounding the emulation of Sony consoles have stemmed from developers and the community. For instance, in early 2023, the development of AetherSX2 was “suspended indefinitely” after the developer stated they’d experienced “neverending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats.”

So while Switch emulator development has started to ramp back up a bit, the same couldn’t be said about Sony’s consoles. For quite some time, there was hope in the community that RPCS3 would release its PS3 emulator on Android.

However, those hopes were dashed in December 2024, when RPCS3 for arm64 was released. In the announcement blog post, there’s an entire section dedicated to “other mobile platforms.” Specifically in regards to Android, the blog post says “We have no intention of porting RPCS3 to these platforms at this time.” And as for the reason? “We are aware it comes with its own disadvantages, such as having to deal with toxic users that have harassed other emulator developers in the past, like the brilliant developers behind AetherSX2.”