Update

It is not entirely clear whether those games are part of Nvidia’s Geforce Now streaming service or native apps. The official Nvidia PR speaks of download titles whereas the games are listed under Geforce Now on Nvidia’s chinese website.

Edit: Nvidia confirmed they are ports and that the listing under Geforce Now is a mistake.


Original post

Earlier this year Industry Specialist Daniel Ahmad forsaw a content sharing agreement between Nintendo and Nvidia that would allow them to publish old Wii and Gamecube games on the Nvidia Shield TV in China.

He was right as games like Twilight Princess and New Super Mario Bros Wii are now available for purchase (~$10 each) on the chinese Shield store. They are rendered in 1080p. Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime are scheduled for release at some point in the future. A short demo of Twilight Princess running on the Shield TV can be watched here. For New Super Mario Bros, go here.

Daniel Ahmad says that localization plans for the west are unlikely because the agreement was always supposed to be for China only.

Below is Nvidia’s official PR on the matter:

Extending the business relationship that brought NVIDIA technology to Nintendo Switch, some of Nintendo's most beloved Wii and Nintendo GameCube titles are officially headed to China for the first time. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and PUNCH-OUT!! are remastered in 1080p and available on the China version of NVIDIA SHIELD, released today.

SHIELD owners in China will be able to download and play select Wii and Nintendo GameCube titles, with others coming soon – among them,Super Mario Galaxy. These amazing games have been provided to NVIDIA under license.

Customized for the China market, SHIELD is a completely localized device, with local content, store, search and more. SHIELD will bring Chinese customers a brand-new experience in gaming, AI and home entertainment with Baidu's DuerOS conversational AI system and abundant entertainment options from iQIYI.

Source (Engadget)
Source (Twitter)

 

[jt_1258]

I don't think anyone has ever really wanted the Chinese apps before, so probably not at the moment. But I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen, when these launch.

Although if it is through GeForce Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you'll need a China-based VPN to stream games as well.

I think rates for vpn services that port folks to china just went up after this realization

 

[huma_dawii]

Well that's sad. Who confirmed it?

Its on My Nintendo News, with source and everything lol

 

[DarthDub]

Only streaming? That makes me sad..

 

[LightyKD]

PLEASE let there be Wii Remote and Nunchuck support! A major MAJOR part of why I don't own a Switch is the lack of backwards compatibility. Not gonna give up my Wii U with NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, GC, Wii, Wii U support over a Switch that plays Switch games and a few Virtual Console games. I have a very casual play-style with a hardcore love of games and I don't need 1:1 emulation, just emulation that works. Wii U gives me that, Switch, not so much. Now give me Android support on Switch with all the emulators that come with it and we might have something.

 

[Jayro]

Weird move... won't these be easily piratable and possibly game-injectable?

 

[Spider_Man]

Though ya gotta admit the idea of the switch is pretty rad, right, ya can slip the controllers on and hold/play or ya can slip em off and do local coop/vs anywhere, smash bros will be an instant buy for me if/when it comes out, trust me, the a single joycon by itself will be way better then a wii mote by itself *shiver* ...the wii mote for smash is scary just to think about

Yea pretty rad being able to detach controllers from a tablet and push the tablet to your big screen and play games......

wait, where else did i see this rad idea that nintendo took....

MORPHUS X300.

and yea im sure plently bitch about android (prob because theyre crapple fans, who like nintendo love paying over the tops for old hardware), but there are far more games on the app store that are actually decent when you consider the fact that you dont have to purchase them.

in fact i actually play more android/ios based games than i do nintendo, now here is the question you need to ask to why nintendo set out to try take a slice of this market by releasing the wii u which was its way of creating a tablet like console.

theyre approach for the switch was how can they still try to take a slice of this market (after all we know theyre loosing its hold on third parties), and im confident that someone at nintendo saw the MORPHUS X300 and said why not copy this idea.

So yea we thank nintendo for its RAD idea.

 

[PhyChris]

Interesting news. I doubt it'll be an emulator, as powerful as the Shield TV is, the CPU cores it uses aren't exactly "GC/Wii, perfect emulation" powerful. I expect these will be ports, and if these are ports, it's likely they may come to the Switch as well.

I seen PSX emulated on dreamcast. If the developers are paid the emulator will happen

 

[330]

They are probably making a marketing experiment.

 

[Bedel]

Do imagine it being a port for switch, streamed to shield? lmao That would be a blast for everyone

 

[FAST6191]

Oh well, at the very least, this screenshot indicates an actual port:

Note the face buttons. It it were streaming the Gamecube/Wii version, those face buttons wouldn’t have been there.

Sigh, will update the OP again.

I should note the versions of the N64 Zeldas for the GC had changed buttons but were still emulation, and minor ROM hacks to button icons goes back to the arcade era. In this case the games have a file system and they probably still even have the source code.

 

[Mefisteso]

I'd like Super Mario Galaxy to land on a Switch for one reason. I'd like people who are new to the Nintendo brand to realize how cool games can be, even if they don't look dark, edgy, serious(even if there are a lot of dark themes in those). I know a lot of people who were turning away from the N platforms based on that impression. Luckily the Nintendo somehow attracted both audiences with Zelda: Botw and to some degree with Mario Odyssey.
I also believe that part of the success of the Cuphead on PC/XOne is because people find it refreshing to play a difficult, somehow dark game which looks like it's meant for children.

 

[Radius4]

Hey good news
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/com..._wii_gamecube_games_come_to_china_on/dqtel8b/

NVIDIA confirmed these are ports.

LOL so funny that they would make such a big mistake on the page.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I seen PSX emulated on dreamcast. If the developers are paid the emulator will happen

That's irrelevant, PS1 emulation on Dreamcast is "easier" because both consoles were using similar RISC CPUs so most instructions didn't need to be emulated whatsoever. But even Bleemcast could barely play most games well, despite this similarity a lot of games didn't run well and it was plagued with bugs.

This is different, the Shield TV uses ARM cores which are generally weaker than x86, and emulating PPC requires much more work as it's a different architecture. The Shield TV has similar CPU benchmark scores as a low end AMD laptop APU, and ARM CPUs have just as low of IPC as older AMD CPUs did (which is one of the reasons AMD CPUs were garbage for PS2/GC/Wii emulation).

Hey good news
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/com..._wii_gamecube_games_come_to_china_on/dqtel8b/

NVIDIA confirmed these are ports.

Nice, I figured it couldn't be emulated and GeForce Now made no sense in China, so it's good to see these are direct ports.

 

[Kioku]

Hey good news
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/com..._wii_gamecube_games_come_to_china_on/dqtel8b/

NVIDIA confirmed these are ports.

LOL so funny that they would make such a big mistake on the page.

Ambushes is part of the Nvidia team?

 

[KingVamp]

Hey good news
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/com..._wii_gamecube_games_come_to_china_on/dqtel8b/

NVIDIA confirmed these are ports.

LOL so funny that they would make such a big mistake on the page.

So, it is OK to believe this time?

I guess Windows 10 emojis don't work here. lol

 

[Radius4]

I actually argued that unless they screwed up on the page it's most likely geforce-now and I think I was right to say that.

 

[sarkwalvein]

So, it is OK to believe this time?

I guess Windows 10 emojis don't work here. lol

If by believe you mean some Wii/GC ports coming to the Switch as a not so "Virtual Console", then yeah, probably, when the eShop finally opens in full I guess.

 

[bi388]

To address some stuff that's been argued here, I am a Nintendo fan. I don't own a switch yet because of its lack of great 1st party exclusives (2 right now, but I'll get one when it has more than Mario and xenoblade). I also have a ps4 and a Wii u. Because they have great exclusives. I don't have an xbone cause it doesnt. If I want to play a 3rd party game there's a system that does that better: pc. Every ps4 game i have is an exclusive. And as someone who didn't get a ps3 I love the ps3 ports on ps4, and I'm sure a lot of switch owners love the mk8 and botw ports because they didn't have a Wii u. Are graphics nice? Of course. And if a game looks beautiful it is points in it's favor, but i enjoy botw, with its 720p and no anti aliasing, more than for example until dawn, which is one of the best looking ps4 games on the system, because botw has top tier gameplay while until dawn's is laughable in comparison (Not a bad game but they don't even compare). Nintendo is and has always been my favorite company but if you want 3rd party games, don't buy the system and then cry it doesn't have them. The only system worth getting for 3rd party games is a pc. You get a switch, or Wii u, or even a ps4 imo for their exclusive games.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

What amuses me most about this is that the Gamecube and Wii line were powered by ATI/AMD graphics, not NVIDIA chipsets.

 

[jt_1258]

Yea pretty rad being able to detach controllers from a tablet and push the tablet to your big screen and play games......

wait, where else did i see this rad idea that nintendo took....

MORPHUS X300.

and yea im sure plently bitch about android (prob because theyre crapple fans, who like nintendo love paying over the tops for old hardware), but there are far more games on the app store that are actually decent when you consider the fact that you dont have to purchase them.

in fact i actually play more android/ios based games than i do nintendo, now here is the question you need to ask to why nintendo set out to try take a slice of this market by releasing the wii u which was its way of creating a tablet like console.

theyre approach for the switch was how can they still try to take a slice of this market (after all we know theyre loosing its hold on third parties), and im confident that someone at nintendo saw the MORPHUS X300 and said why not copy this idea.

So yea we thank nintendo for its RAD idea.

eww, I just looked that thing up and it looks discusting, also, mobile games normally don't have split/same screen multiplayer/vs