--- title: Way to Play Super Mario 64: On Apple Vision Pro | daily.dev description: Super Mario 64 runs as a tabletop diorama on Apple Vision Pro. Each level sits on your real table and you walk around it while playing with a controller,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/way-to-play-super-mario-64-on-apple-vision-pro-znfeto2lj twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Way to Play Super Mario 64: On Apple Vision Pro | daily.dev og:description: Super Mario 64 runs as a tabletop diorama on Apple Vision Pro. Each level sits on your real table and you walk around it while playing with a controller,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/way-to-play-super-mario-64-on-apple-vision-pro-znfeto2lj og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zNFeTO2lj.png og:image:alt: Way to Play Super Mario 64: On Apple Vision Pro og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Way to Play Super Mario 64: On Apple Vision Pro **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 1 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Super Mario 64 runs as a tabletop diorama on Apple Vision Pro. Each level sits on your real table and you walk around it while playing with a controller, acting as your own camera. The project, diorama64, stands on the shoulders of the SM64 decompilation project and sm64coopdx, plus HD textures from SM64 Reloaded and Render96, and 3D models from Render96 and SwagSkeleton95's replacements. The post contrasts this with Nintendo's history of DMCA takedowns against the SM64 PC port in 2020 and a lawsuit against Yuzu in 2024, noting Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently praised decompiled games as 'unmistakably good outcomes for players.' ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Is there a way to play Super Mario 64 on Apple Vision Pro? Yes, a project called diorama64 runs Super Mario 64 as a tabletop diorama on Apple Vision Pro. It uses the SM64 decompilation project and sm64coopdx as the underlying game code, with HD textures from SM64 Reloaded and Render96, and 3D models from Render96 and SwagSkeleton95's replacements. Each level appears on your real table and you walk around it while playing with a controller. _Vision Pro tinkerers tracking homebrew AR ports like this one can follow updates on daily.dev._ ### What legal action has Nintendo taken against Super Mario 64 decompilation and emulation projects? Nintendo issued DMCA takedowns against the Super Mario 64 PC port in 2020 and filed a lawsuit against the Switch emulator Yuzu in 2024. This contrasts with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's recent comment that decompiling and rebuilding games for new hardware produces 'unmistakably good outcomes for players.' _Developers weighing the legal risk of decompilation projects can keep tabs on cases like these via daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 74 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-21). **TL;DR:** Reactions focus heavily on nostalgia for Super Mario 64 and excitement about diorama-style VR as a motion-sickness-friendly alternative to full VR, while a side debate about Nintendo's IP enforcement and the Vision Pro's high price/low adoption pulls in more mixed and critical views. **Sentiment:** 45% positive · 40% mixed · 15% skeptical **The case for** - Many find the tabletop diorama approach genuinely appealing and less nausea-inducing than first-person VR. - Several say this is the first thing that's made them want a Vision Pro or VR headset at all. - Commenters see strong potential for other games (Civilization, Fire Emblem, Mario Kart battle mode) in this format. - Decompilation/recomp efforts are praised as enabling preservation and new experiences people have long wanted. **The pushback** - Some argue the diorama view isn't actually the best way to play SM64 itself, even if interesting for other genres. - Criticism that the Vision Pro has low adoption and is overpriced relative to its value. - Strong disagreement over Nintendo's legal aggression (DMCAs, Yuzu lawsuit) with some defending and others condemning the company. - A few note game-key-card/digital ownership concerns tied into the broader Nintendo critique. **By community** - hackernews (mixed): Nostalgic enthusiasm for the SM64 diorama concept and broader VR/diorama-style gaming sits alongside a heated side-argument about Nintendo's legal history and skepticism about Vision Pro adoption. **Hottest debate:** Whether Nintendo's aggressive IP enforcement is justified or makes it a villain holding back fan preservation efforts like decompilation projects. **Open questions** - Will this diorama-style approach be ported to other standalone VR headsets? - Could the same tabletop format work well for strategy games like Civilization or Fire Emblem? **Highlights** > Since getting my Frame I think I've spent more time playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 in 3D than I have doing anything else. 3D in a window is much easier to deal with then full VR from a motion sickness perspective. I think the VR space made an unforced error by focusing a bit too much on VR and not enough on just plain 3D. VR is cool and it has a lot of interesting applications. But I've enjoyed my time with SMG2 in a 3D window quite a bit. I've enjoyed Triangle Strategy on my Quest 3S, which is a tactics game played on a diorama. There are some other applications based on the idea like shared dungeon crawlers modeled on table-top layouts rather than first person perspective. There's a lot of games that need only minimal tweaking or fiddling that could add a bit more visual interest by being displayed in full, true 3D. The space of games that could be improved by just being playable in 3D is much larger than the space of games that can be improved by VR specifically, since the former is a superset of the latter. Subconsciously it may feel like if you're developing for a "VR" headset, it ought to be "VR", but that's not the case. It's a well-known trap in gaming in general that when some new tech comes out there's a rush of things that feel obligated to "exploit" the tech so as not to be perceived as being behind the times, but it always becomes clear that is not necessarily. Most famously, the numerous Wii games that had to integrate "motion controls" and turned a nice, easy, concrete button press into a vague, nondeterministic "waggle" until just saying "motion controls" with a certain inflection has become a meme. There's no problem using the VR headset to enhance a game... or indeed any application... without it having to be "VR". My Steam Frame was cheaper than this 57" curved "gaming" monitor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CDQM55C9 If gamers are willing to drop that on nice monitors just to play games, it would make sense to drop that much on a VR headset to play them in 3D too... if there was anything to do with that. > — [jerf on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50181183) > >What's everyone's take on the gamers cheering against the Nintendo? Nintendo is a scourge on the gaming industry. Gary Bowser is going to spend the rest of his life paying them, they illegally send DMCA takedowns on emulators, threaten developers by sending goons directly to their homes, takes away your ownership of games with their game code carts, tries to control and destroy the second hand market. Nintendo can burn. >Who's going to create this generation's own franchises like Nintendo did? Nintendo created zero franchises in this generation. Splatoon, maybe ? They're already creatively dry. > What will be their incentives to invest time and effort in any new IP? Piracy and emulation have been present for the past twenty years. Does it look like no new IPs came out in those twenty years ? Hell, for the recent recomp projects, it has been people _begging_ to be able to play games on another platform, they would have paid for it. Bloodborne has gotten a decomp that people have been screaming for for years. Companies that believe they can get you stuck on their platforms are going to crash and burn, and we'll all be better off for it. (Also intellectual property as a whole is a farce and has made the world worse) > — [well\_ackshually on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50183221) > Well, that’s the first thing I’ve ever seen that made me want a Vision Pro (or VR/AR in general), so hats off for that. (Edit: Mario 64 pun not intended) > — [olivierestsage on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50180408) > People when playing with LEGO or board games: "I wonder what it would look like from the perspective of the figures" People when playing game consoles: "I wonder what it would look like from a distance" > — [amelius on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50180114) > Mario 64 is probably the game I have spent the most amount of time playing. I had never really played any "open ended" games before it; sometimes I would just load up the game to run around, with no goals of collecting any stars or making any progress or anything. The platforming controls were fun even when there wasn't any specific "goal", and to a six year old kid the worlds felt huge. As a cynical grownup who more or less knows how to write software, I now know that a lot of the "gigantic" feeling you'd have in N64 games was smoke and mirrors, but I didn't as a kid. It felt like if I just swam to some yet-unexplored corner of Jolly Roger Bay there would be something waiting for me. It doesn't hurt that the music is actually really good (particularly in Jolly Roger Bay). Without hyperbole, as a thirty-something now, I've probably played through the game around thirty or forty times; I have most of the stars pretty thoroughly memorized and I can get an "any%" completion in a couple hours. I will still load the game up every now and again on my MiSTer. Despite being one of the first big 3D platformers, I still think it's one of the best. > — [tombert on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50180308) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150214) · 180 points · 74 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Super Mario 64 Comes To The Microsoft Zune](https://daily.dev/posts/super-mario-64-comes-to-the-microsoft-zune-pzwvcywvw) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [You can now play Super Mario 64 for free in your browser with 12-player multiplayer](https://daily.dev/posts/you-can-now-play-super-mario-64-for-free-in-your-browser-with-12-player-multiplayer-pummrkoat) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Using The SNES Super FX Chip To Run Super Mario 64](https://daily.dev/posts/using-the-snes-super-fx-chip-to-run-super-mario-64-mbpusul7i) · Hackaday · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your old Nintendo 64 games are finally getting unofficial PC ports, and they run better than emulators](https://daily.dev/posts/your-old-nintendo-64-games-are-finally-getting-unofficial-pc-ports-and-they-run-better-than-emulato-buc1z3nip) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Someone Just Put All Of Minecraft Into Super Mario 64](https://daily.dev/posts/someone-just-put-all-of-minecraft-into-super-mario-64-7izcoucuf) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#apple](https://daily.dev/tags/apple), [#nintendo](https://daily.dev/tags/nintendo) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/way-to-play-super-mario-64-on-apple-vision-pro-znfeto2lj) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Way to Play Super Mario 64: On Apple Vision Pro","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/way-to-play-super-mario-64-on-apple-vision-pro-znfeto2lj","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/way-to-play-super-mario-64-on-apple-vision-pro-znfeto2lj"},"datePublished":"2026-10-21T14:30:30.070Z","dateModified":"2026-10-21T20:25:52.199Z","description":"Super Mario 64 runs as a tabletop diorama on Apple Vision Pro. 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