Nintendo Switch Games on Apple TV: How TVport's Port Works

A Redditor has released an open-source project called TVport that recompiles Nintendo Switch games to run natively on Apple TV hardware rather than emulating the console, according to 9to5Mac. The developer, who goes by FloatingFalafel, built TVport as a fork of nxnative, a separate project that already runs Switch games on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, per Kod.ru.

Only three games have been tested so far: Super Mario Odyssey, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and an unfinished build of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, 9to5Mac reports. Running any of them requires an Apple-silicon Mac, developer tools, and a game dump users have to supply themselves. TVport is distributed as a project users build and sideload; the supplied reporting does not describe an App Store version.

What follows is what TVport actually does, which games run and how well, what the setup demands, and where the developer's claims go further than what's been independently confirmed.

Is TVport an emulator, or Apple TV Nintendo game recompilation?

The developer describes TVport as a recompilation project, not an emulator, a distinction central to how the project frames its performance. According to Kod.ru, the approach recompiles a game's code for Apple silicon and translates the Switch's graphics calls to Apple's Metal API. That description comes from the developer; the supplied reporting does not independently verify the implementation.

Kod.ru's report attributes a claimed frame-rate range of 30 to 60 fps to this recompilation approach, according to Kod.ru.

Practically, TVport adds a tvOS build target plus a companion Mac app. A user compiles a game on the Mac, and that app pushes the build straight to an Apple TV, per Kod.ru. The developer also says the project was written with help from Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 model, a workflow detail the developer disclosed on Reddit rather than something Anthropic has confirmed or commented on publicly, per Kod.ru.

The supplied reporting does not include independent code review or benchmarking of TVport's translation layer. Until that happens, both the frame-rate numbers and the "native, not emulation" label should be treated as the developer's own characterization.

Which Nintendo Switch games work on Apple TV right now?

Compatibility is handled title by title. Most games behave similarly to how they run on Switch hardware, but some load textures into memory differently and need individual fixes before they work, according to 9to5Mac. That's why the working list still sits at three titles.

Super Mario Odyssey runs at 60 fps on a third-generation Apple TV 4K with the A15 chip, with occasional stutters and some audio glitches near waterfalls, per 9to5Mac and Kod.ru.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons runs at 30 fps, and the developer says testing so far has turned up no issues, 9to5Mac reports.

Tears of the Kingdom is still being worked on. It runs at 30 fps with render scale dropped to 75%, but the console still thermal throttles, and the developer says getting it running at all required partially rewriting parts of the game's engine, according to Kod.ru. The developer has mentioned a possible workaround for the throttling and is working on adding MetalFX upscaling, but has also said the game may never run well on third-generation hardware, per 9to5Mac.

All of these figures come from the developer's own testing on the developer's own hardware. The supplied reporting does not include independent reproduction of these results, so the frame-rate numbers should be read as developer-reported claims, not a settled benchmark.

What it takes to actually try TVport

TVport is not something an Apple TV owner downloads and opens. Getting it running requires a specific chain of hardware and software, and each link narrows the pool of people who can realistically test it.

The Mac needs Apple silicon, macOS 26.6, and Xcode 27.1, according to Kod.ru. The Apple TV itself has to be switched into Developer Mode and running tvOS 26 or later. From there, a user supplies a game dump and the console's prod.keys file, neither of which TVport's GitHub repository includes, and compiles the first build, a process that takes 30 to 60 minutes, per Kod.ru. The developer's own instructions specify dumping only games the user personally owns.

Even after clearing all of that, the result isn't permanent. Apps sideloaded with a free Apple ID stop launching after seven days and have to be reinstalled, per Kod.ru. There's also a hardware ceiling to work around: Apple TV limits each app to roughly 2.1GB of memory, so TVport stores game data in one large file and swaps unused portions out to flash storage to stay under that cap, Kod.ru explains. That's a workaround for console-class memory demands on a device that wasn't built to meet them, not a fix.

Nintendo Switch 2 games on Apple TV: what's confirmed and what isn't

TVport's GitHub description advertises support for both original Switch and Switch 2 game dumps, according to 9to5Mac. But every performance result publicly reported so far, Mario, Animal Crossing, and the in-progress Zelda build, involves original Switch titles. The supplied reports do not identify a Switch 2 game running on Apple TV through TVport.

A related data point doesn't close that gap. A separate, closed build of nxnative, the parent project TVport forks from, previously ran Mario Kart World, a Switch 2 title, on iPhone, per Kod.ru. That shows Switch 2 compatibility exists somewhere within the nxnative family, but it's a different device running a different build, not evidence that TVport currently runs Switch 2 games on an Apple TV.

TVport is distributed under an open-source MIT license, and the repository doesn't include any game files or encryption keys, Kod.ru notes. Development is currently paused: the developer is holding off on further work until a fourth-generation Apple TV with 8GB of RAM becomes available, since some games reportedly need more memory than the third-generation Apple TV 4K can offer, according to both 9to5Mac and Kod.ru.

Dumping a Switch cartridge or system files and extracting encryption keys sits in a legally sensitive area regardless of who owns the game being dumped. The developer's instruction to dump only owned titles, per Kod.ru, addresses intent, not the underlying legal risk of the process itself.

What TVport means for Apple TV owners right now

For now, TVport is a developer-oriented experiment, not a consumer Apple TV feature. The current build requires an Apple-silicon Mac, specific versions of macOS and Xcode, Developer Mode, user-supplied game files, and repeated reinstallations for anyone using a free Apple ID.

Enthusiasts can monitor the project on GitHub, but the reported results so far remain developer tests on a single third-generation Apple TV 4K, with no Switch 2 title demonstrated running on Apple TV through TVport.