Switch 2 exclusive games running on PCs and Macs: first demonstrations

Native execution on Apple hardware

Developer Will Faust has shared footage of Mario Kart World running on an iPhone 18 Pro. The project utilizes a private fork of nxnative, which allows original Switch games to run directly on Apple's ARM-based hardware by translating the console's graphics API to Metal. Full support for Switch 2 will require further development, specifically regarding the newer NVN2 graphics API.

According to Will Faust, the iPhone version utilizes just under 6.5GB of physical memory through a userspace file-backed memory implementation. He suggests the game could potentially run on devices with 8GB of RAM, such as the iPhone 16. However, Will Faust has confirmed that he will not be releasing the source code for his Switch 2 modifications.

Emulation via modified Eden

In a separate demonstration, a developer known as Sheepish showed Splatoon Raiders booting through a private build of the Eden emulator. While Eden was originally designed for the first Nintendo Switch, this specific build was compiled from source code provided by another developer.

The current state of the emulation shows significant limitations: although the game reached the character selection screen, performance remains poor, characterized by severe slowdowns, missing implementations, and a lack of working VSync. Sheepish noted the use of AI-assisted development and suggested that these modifications might be released publicly later this week. As there is no public release yet, these results cannot be independently verified.

These two methods represent distinct approaches: nxnative attempts to execute ARM code directly on Apple hardware, whereas the modified Eden build attempts to run Switch 2 software through the software layer of an existing emulator. Neither demonstration establishes broad compatibility for the Switch 2 library at this stage.