You been looking for the best Nintendo Switch emulators for Android? Well we got you covered!
The Nintendo Switch is a console that has a lot of gamers excited.
And for a couple key reasons reasons…
First of all, it is just such a cool concept: a game console designed to be portable first, that also has the ability to be docked on your television for a home console experience.
And probably the best reason to be excited: all of the awesome games for the system.
Nintendo’s first party games are some of the absolute best titles ever created.
Between your Marios and your Zeldas and your Kirbys and your Donkey Kongs… so many amazing franchises that only live on the Nintendo console.
So what if you can’t afford a Switch? What if you want to play just one game and can’t justify the investment in the console for it? Or what if you just don’t want to buy one?
Whatever the reason, there are gonna be a lot of people out there who just wanna play the games however they can, and emulation is one possibility.
We could argue ethics of that all day, and we would contend that emulation is acceptable for any console or game that you cannot go buy in the store.
But if we put moral discussion aside, there’s gonna be people doing it no matter what you believe about it.
(A few interesting reads about emulation: What Does Emulation Mean? / Are Emulators Legal?)
It is no surprise that the Nintendo Switch is a pretty desirable console when it comes to emulation.
Because the Nintendo Switch console is still so new, there are not a lot of emulation options out there quite yet.
Some consoles take 10 years or more before somebody finally cracks the code for near perfect game play through emulation.
Lucky for us, Nintendo Switch emulation has been cracked in a few Android applications.
And while they are not perfect, we are starting to see the teams behind these programs make giant steps in the right direction to bringing playable emulation of some of our favorite titles on the Switch.
So let’s take a look at the best Nintendo Switch emulators for Android:
1. EGG NS
EGG NS Emulator is a Nintendo Switch emulator that has been created specifically for Android.
Meaning, there are no Windows, Mac or Linux ports, where Android could possibly have been an afterthought and come with much less support and less frequent updates.
Yes, the team behind EGG developed the application with Android emulation in mind from the start.
This means that you should expect that they will be very on top of any bugs, figuring out fine tuning, and keeping users as up to date as possible with the latest games for Switch and on the latest Android Devices.
Check out The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running on EGG NS:
2. Skyline
Skyline is widely considered one of the best emulator created for the Nintendo Switch.
And like its peer EGG NS, Skyline was created specifically for Android. So no worries about the team neglecting that arm of the build for latest updates.
Speaking of updates, Skyline are always bringing new fixes and keeping up with their users, some of those updates released as recent as last week!
From the outside looking in, it seems like the way that development and updates for Nintendo Switch emulators goes a little something like this:
As problems are discovered for specific games, fixes are attempted to address those exact issues.
So it would seem that the emulation programs are not necessarily a one size fits all solution.
And as a user, we don’t necessarily have to know how it all works behind the scenes. We just want to see our favorite games working.
And rest assured, if a game is popular, there’s probably gonna be a lot of people sending their bug reports back to the teams behind these emulators, and those will likely be the games addressed.
At the moment, no Nintendo Switch emulator will run every game perfect. In fact, the amount of games that will run at all might be much smaller than you’d like.
But again, it’s important to remember that emulation of the Nintendo Switch is still in its infancy.
We will need another ten years before it is at 90%.
We should just be happy that it is possible at all.
For the time being, EGG NS and Skyline are the best Nintendo Switch emulators for Android.
Anthony has been a video game lover ever since he can remember. He became a fulltime nomad in 2018, living throughout most of Asia. He focused his passion in retro gaming and began creating a game for the Game Boy Color while living in Nara, Japan during the 2020 pandemic. He is now in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he spends most of his time gaming, going on long walks and meeting as many stray dogs as possible.
