Skyline Nintendo Switch emulator manages to run Super Mario Odyssey on Android

Development on Skyline, a recently-launched Nintendo Switch emulator for Android, has been progressing rapidly. The emulator can already play a number of Switch games, from indie games like Cuphead to more demanding 3D titles, including One Piece Unlimited World. YouTuber GIANT GAMING 2 showcased Super Mario Odyssey running on the latest version of Skyline, albeit at 9 FPS.

Skyline isn't actually the first Switch emulator out on Android devices. Egg NS is further along in development and already runs AAA Switch titles like Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3. However, Egg NS is closed-source, locks certain features behind a paid subscription, and has been accused of stealing code from Yuzu and Skyline itself. 

The Nintendo Switch is powered by NVIDIA's Tegra X1 chipset, with 393 GFLOPs of graphics compute power in mobile mode. The Adreno 660 GPU in the Snapdragon 888 is substantially faster, slightly beating entry-level laptop GPUs like the NVIDIA GeForce MX150. At least from a hardware perspective, high-end Android devices have the horsepower to emulate the Switch at playable framerates. 

It will be interesting to see how development progresses on Skyline. There's a very real possibility that mobile gamers will be able to emulate current and last-gen AAA titles on smartphones in the months to come, without having to contend with Egg NS's issues.  

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