A Reddit user has released TVPort, an open-source tool that rebuilds Nintendo Switch games to run natively on an Apple TV 4K, Engadget reported on November 4. Engadget's Kris Holt based the story on u/FloatingFalafel's release post in the r/decomps subreddit, where the developer said they used Claude Opus 5.5 for the project.
TVPort is a fork of nxnative, an open-source toolkit that turns a user's own Switch game files into native apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac. According to Engadget, TVPort brings that approach to the Apple TV, handles both Switch and Switch 2 games, and does the build on a Mac. The developer also says it can back up saves to a Mac or iCloud and lets players pick a 30 fps or 60 fps target.
Most games behave much as they do on a Switch, the developer wrote in the post Engadget quotes, but some load textures into memory differently and have to be diagnosed and fixed first. Super Mario Odyssey reportedly runs at 60 fps, with occasional slight stutters and audio problems near waterfalls. Animal Crossing: New Horizons appears capped at 30 fps, and the developer said they hadn't run into any issues with it.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a harder case. It thermal-throttled on the Apple TV in testing, and the developer said getting games like it running takes serious diagnostics and even partial rewrites of the game's engine, applied as patches. They added that "heavier games like TOTK might never run" on the third-generation Apple TV 4K.
The repository includes no game files, Engadget said, so players need copies dumped from their own cartridges.
Why it matters: this follows the wave of agent-assisted native ports we covered in October, from Tears of the Kingdom on Mac to Portal 2 on iPhone. Each one points to coding models being used for the slow, game-by-game diagnosis work that recompilation needs. It also adds to the tension in the decompilation community: decomp.dev recently shut down its project index, saying AI misuse had broken the community.
Caveat: every result here is the developer's own claim, relayed by Engadget. AIGamer couldn't open the Reddit post or find the TVPort repository, and we haven't tested it. How much of the code Claude wrote isn't stated.
Next: the developer is also working on native Switch ports for Xbox Series X, according to Engadget.
