You thought you’d never see the day, but as the Super Mario 64 to PS1 port proves, nothing is impossible in the eyes of a fearless modder. Nintendo’s Super Mario classic, originally released in 1996 on the Nintendo 64 console, can now be played on a PlayStation — or a PlayStation 1 emulator, rather.
The Super Mario 64 to PS1 port was made by a user named “Malucard” and is available on GitHub. The port was tested by a YouTube channel named Video Game Esoterica, which shows a functioning but clunky version of the original game. As Malucard mentioned in the port’s description, and as the sight of a shaky, falling-through-floors Mario confirms, this is very much a work in progress.
While you’re sitting at home, perhaps with a PlayStation 5 in your vicinity, you may be wondering what’s so special about a PlayStation port that won’t be used widely anyway, but you should probably see this Super Mario 64 project as an impressive and perhaps symbolic achievement. Many of us have experienced the heartbreak of finding out that the one cool game you were hoping to get isn’t available on your console, so after almost 30 years, seeing Super Mario 64 on a PlayStation is a thing of beauty.
For the modder’s sake, however, let’s hope this Super Mario 64 port doesn’t trigger Nintendo’s fury, as they aren’t the kind of company to accept unofficial ports to rival consoles. In fact, when a fan created a Super Mario 64 port for PC in 2020, Nintendo quickly sent its team of lawyers after them to remove it. But then again, the Super Mario 64 decompilation used in the PS1 port has been available for years now, and the N64 vs. PS1 war has cooled down a fair bit since the late ‘90s, so perhaps they’ll let this one slide.
