Given Nintendo’s use of Bluetooth for Switch controllers, it makes sense that the Even a 3D legend like Super Mario 64 played well with the Joy-Con, although I lacked enough buttons to have manual camera control. OpenEmu was a total breeze, and within moments I was immersed in Super Nintendo classics like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario Kart like I was a kid again. The legality of emulation is a sticky subject, but if you own the original game, you’re entitled to have a backup ROM. Truth be told, the Joy-Cons are absolutely perfect for emulating old-school games. Spend a minute mapping the buttons in OpenEmu and you’ll be playing retro classics with the Joy-Con. Same withġ40, an inventive, ultra-minimal side-scrolling platform game. After playing with the in-game bindings, I was dropping towers and running around with ease. PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate, one of my all-time favorite PlayStation games that was ported to Mac. I fired up Steam and had a look at my library, and found that it was a perfect fit for tower defense great Most 3D games are going to be too complex to work with a single analog stick, so skip the first-person shooters. And that’s essentially the experience you get on Mac: a Joy-Con, held sideways, with a limited array of inputs.Īs such, you’ll have to choose carefully when it comes to games. For example, you’ll be able to throw down in next month’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with two players each wielding a single Joy-Con.

The two Joy-Con pads can be used simultaneously, either attached to the screen or held separately, but each can also be used individually for multiplayer games. On the Switch, you have different kinds of configurations. Andrew HaywardĮach Joy-Con functions independently, but hopefully some enterprising soul gives us a way to use them in tandem. And since you’re holding it sideways, the additional shoulder and trigger buttons on the lower left or right side won’t really come into play. That’s a big limitation, since each Joy-Con acts like half a controller: it has one analog stick and four primary face buttons, along with two small shoulder buttons. Each Joy-Con registers as its own controller, however, and unless someone creates a software solution to enable it, they can’t be used together simultaneously as a single unit on Mac.

Openemu mac controller