Turn Your Apple TV Into a Nintendo-ish Console That Can’t Actually Play Any Nintendo Games

Turn Your Apple TV Into a Nintendo-ish Console That Can’t Actually Play Any Nintendo Games

The Apple TV might be shiny, black, and sleek, but it’s also kind of boring. If you’re unimpressed by its design, you can either hide it behind a TV or wrap it in this fun silicone case from Elago that turns the streaming box into a retro console reminiscent of the Super Famicom — minus any fun Nintendo games.

Unlike a skin, which requires extreme patience to painstakingly apply decals that make the Apple TV look like anything other than a black box, Elago’s T4 Apple TV Case is more like the soft, flexible silicone cases you pop onto your smartphone to protect them from bumps and drops. (The company really goes out of its way to avoid saying its design was inspired by the Super Famicom or any Nintendo products, but looks don’t lie.)

Turn Your Apple TV Into a Nintendo-ish Console That Can’t Actually Play Any Nintendo Games

The installation process might be a little more involved given how thick the Apple TV box is, but it shouldn’t leave you shaking in rage afterwards. What else does the $US25 ($32) case do for Apple’s streaming box? Not much, really. The Apple TV’s power LED still shines through the front of the faux console, which is a nice detail, but the functionality of the box isn’t going to change. And if you want your Apple TV’s remote to look like a matching Super Famicom controller, that’s an extra $US15 ($19) for that silicone case.

If you actually want to play classic games from the Super Famicom and SNES era, you’re probably better off going with an Android TV based streaming box instead of Apple’s locked-down solution. Yes, you can jump through some hoops to make the Apple TV run emulators and ROMs, but it’s so much easier with the competition’s streaming boxes.


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