A Reddit user was able to get Nintendo's "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" and "Super Mario Odyssey" to run natively on the Apple TV 4K, continuing a string of ports made possible with the use of AI (via Engadget).
TVPort, Reddit user FloatingFalafel's open-source project, is a fork of the nxnative toolkit used to recompile Switch and Switch 2 games for the Apple TV using a Mac. It was built using Claude Opus 5.5.
"Super Mario Odyssey" runs at 60fps according to FloatingFalafel, and "Animal Crossing" runs at 30fps. Other games haven't been tested, but the creator says people are welcome to use the open-source software to get other games to run. Game files are not included, and users will need to supply files from their own game cartridges, which requires a modified Nintendo Switch.
[Release] TVPort - Port switch games to run natively on AppleTV (4k 3rd gen)
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u/FloatingFalafel in
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More intensive games like "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" may not be able to run on the third-generation Apple TV 4K because of thermal throttling. The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K that launches November 13 may be able to run titles the third-generation model can't.
Nintendo often takes issue with unofficial ways to play its games, so TVPort may not survive long. In 2024, Nintendo sued the Yuzu emulator team, and the lawsuit led to a $2.4 million settlement and the sunsetting of the emulator.
