A Blast from the Past: Transforming Your Apple TV into a Sega Genesis

🎮 The Magic of Retro Gaming on Apple TV

A beautiful thing happened to me this week with my Apple TV—it became my Sega Genesis, and I felt like a 10-year-old again. Apple recently updated its guidelines for its app stores, now allowing retro video game emulators. The first one for Apple TV, called RetroArch, quickly soared to the top of the free app charts.

However, RetroArch doesn’t come with any games preloaded. Initially, the learning curve might seem steep, but the excitement of diving into nostalgic games urged me to figure it out. In this guide, I will walk you through how to utilize this incredible feature on your Apple TV.

This development is one of the most fascinating upgrades to the Apple TV in a long time. We’re seeing a powerful streaming device morph into a classic game console, offering a glimpse of what is possible when Apple’s otherwise restrictive ecosystem begins to open up.

As I explain how you can relive the glory of the past on a modern $130 4K streaming box, there’s one more critical aspect to address: the limitations within tvOS programming that hinder the Apple TV from becoming a true gaming system. Hopefully, Apple will tackle this issue in future updates.

🕹️ Setting Up RetroArch on Your Apple TV

If you’re not familiar with retro game emulators, fear not. Even though I am new to this, I hope you give it a try—you’ll feel like a magical time-traveling hacker.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Download RetroArch from the Apple TV’s App Store.
2. Note the popup that appears after opening the app—it shows a URL. RetroArch on tvOS has a built-in web server where your files need to go.
3. On your home computer, navigate to the provided URL and upload your game ROM files.
4. Buy your retro games. A very legal way to obtain ROMs is by purchasing them from the Steam store. For instance, you can buy a bundle of Sega Genesis classic games.
5. Once you download the game files from Steam, upload them to the RetroArch web address directory.
6. Return to your Apple TV, open the RetroArch app, and click the game you want to play.

Pro Tip: Ideally, use the Downloads folder for uploading your files; it worked perfectly for me. RetroArch automatically suggests an appropriate emulator for the console, so you don’t need to worry about compatibility.

🛠️ Pairing Game Controllers with Apple TV

You will need a game controller, as the Apple remote will not suffice for playing these classic games. Fortunately, you don’t need to purchase a new controller specifically for your Apple TV. Here’s how you can pair a Nintendo Switch controller with your Apple TV:

1. Hold down the pair button on your Nintendo Switch controller until the lights begin flashing.
2. On your Apple TV, go to Settings > Remotes and Devices, find your controller, and connect it.
3. Enjoy your game!

You can even pair multiple controllers for two-player games. Although the Apple TV remote works fine for Apple Arcade games, it won’t work for emulators, so having a Bluetooth controller is essential.

🎉 The Joy of Classic Games with Family

Playing childhood classics like Toejam and Earl with my own kids was an incredible experience. It also gave me the chance to teach them valuable lessons about the unforgiving nature of old-school games where “game over” genuinely meant starting over from the beginning—no save files, just pure perseverance.

However, this brings me to a crucial downside of tvOS’s current design.

🚧 The Limitations of tvOS

Apple’s latest Apple TV 4K comes with either 64GB or 128GB of storage. But not all of this storage is available for your games and save files. tvOS doesn’t provide apps with persistent storage areas. An app can only store around half a megabyte permanently, meaning most data, including game save files, is treated as temporary.

Emulator users rely on cache space, so if the operating system needs to reclaim some disk space, it could delete these files without warning. Although this hasn’t happened to me yet, it remains a concern.

This issue discourages developers from porting more emulators to Apple TV. It’s even one of the reasons why Minecraft was pulled from Apple TV in 2016. As a developer mentioned on Mastadon, this storage limitation significantly hampers the potential growth of gaming on Apple TV.

If Apple can resolve this issue in future software updates, we might see a renaissance of retro gaming on this platform.

🔮 Looking Forward to Future Updates

Since I started playing around with Apple TV last week, I’ve gone all out, using two HomePods for TV speakers. The entire setup is cohesive, offering smarts like controlling home lights and music with voice commands from the remote. You can even FaceTime with your phone and display it on your TV.

But despite these perks, Apple TV has its weaknesses. Notably, the integration between Apple TV and Netflix needs improvement. Pressing the Siri button and asking for a show will pull up results from streaming services like Amazon Prime, Max, or Disney+, but not Netflix. Instead, you have to manually open the Netflix app to find your show. For example, if you want to watch “The Matrix,” you’d have to search for it within Netflix because Apple prefers pushing you to buy or rent through its own services.

If Apple is serious about making an ultimate product, it needs to rectify this.

🎮 Where Do We Go from Here?

Even though there are areas that need improvement, the fact that Apple TV opened itself up to retro gaming is a step in the right direction. However, limiting how we use its storage holds it back from reaching its full potential. Imagine an upgraded Apple TV, playing nice with both games and Netflix—this could revolutionize the home entertainment experience.

In the meantime, when I’m not lost in the digital nostalgia of Genesis games, I’ll be exploring more on Apple Arcade. One of the more interesting games I’ve found to try was a title I first played on a floppy disk back in my classroom Macintosh days. Ah, the memories!

We’ll have to keep an eye out for the next potential updates at Apple’s WWDC event in June. Stay tuned, and happy retro gaming!