Someone put Super Mario 64 on the Apple TV

Apple Tv 4k Review
Apple Tv 4k Review (Image credit: Stephen Warwick / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Someone has successfully ported Super Mario 64 to the Apple TV.
  • It runs natively at 60fps and at full screen.

The Apple TV 4K (2021) is a great home entertainment hub for gaming and viewing alike, and now someone has successfully ported Nintendo's classic Super Mario 64, running in 60fps and at full screen.

ckosmic over on Reddit announced:

Hey everyone. A couple of months ago I ported Super Mario 64 to iOS (https://www.reddit.com/r/SM64PC/comments/q3nm9f/sm64_has_been_ported_to_ios/) and since then I've been making improvements to it here and there. This past week I got it up and running on the Apple TV which, as shown here, runs it perfectly with the 60fps patch and full screen. Note that this is running natively on the Apple TV and uses no emulation whatsoever thanks to the sm64 decompilation project and sm64ex.

To run this yourself, you'd need to build it from source on a Mac using Xcode, so this isn't quite the plug and play convenience of Apple Arcade, but it still looks cool nonetheless, there's even a video!

Ckosmic told commenters that the original decompilation/pc port for Super Mario 64 likely took "years" to create. They were able to make an iOS port in about a week, with a couple more weeks needed to get touch controls and the menu working. Thanks to the similarities between tvOS and iOS this Apple TV version only took a couple of days.

Of all the Mario Games on Nintendo Switch. Super Mario is one of the coolest, available in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars bundle that features Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Galaxy.

Stephen Warwick
News Editor

Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.

Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwarwick9