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Community Project Preserves All 54 iPod Clickwheel Games in a Single Archive

A community-led effort used a shared iTunes virtual machine to create a playable library for owners of compatible iPods.

Overview

  • Real Soccer 2009 was added today, completing the set of 54 titles that Apple delisted from the iTunes Store in 2011.
  • The Clickwheel Games Preservation Project, led by GitHub user Olsro, coordinated contributions from owners with large game libraries.
  • Participants synced their accounts to a single iTunes installation running in a virtual machine to work around Apple’s FairPlay DRM.
  • The preserved games are now accessible to anyone with a functioning clickwheel iPod that supports the titles.
  • The collection includes releases from Square Enix, Sega, and Namco, and the recovery faced setbacks such as corrupted iPod storage during attempts to secure the final game.