AlakaZAM! Changing the Virtual Console in the Virtual Handheld
Pretty much soon after the Virtual Console was announced alongside DS to then Revolution connectivity, people started to wonder about the Virtual Console being on the DS, seen as the DS is considered a pseudo-N64 handheld.
To be perfectly honest, I originally thought the whole idea about Emulated N64 games on the DS is nothing more then “stupid kiddy ideas”, ones who don’t know anything about technical limitations of emulation. That was…up until last night. Now, the idea of DS being the one to emulate the N64 is still stupid, but the Wii can.
Going back to the off-shoot idea of the Wii capturing DS gameplay, why not reverse that idea a little? The Wii can emulate the N64, right? If the Wii can send data to the DS, why can’t it send video data instead? The idea I have in mind, is that the Wii sends a video stream to the DS, and along with it a small background application where when you press a button on the DS, it sends a very tiny piece of data that the Wii interprets as a button press on a Wii controller. When something happens on the N64 game on the Wii, the video data will get send back to the DS, making it seem like it’s actually being played on the DS.
To maximise video data transfer, you wouldn’t display the video or audio on the Wii, just constantly send it to the DS. Plus, you’d be displaying the Video at a lot smaller resolution then the N64 (320x240 is the N64 Resolution, 256x192 is the DS Resolution).
The only problem now is that the DS doesn’t have as many buttons as the N64, but the DS could use the touch screen, or send out various controller schemes per game (although this would take a bit more setting up, compared to one setup with the controller scheme).
Nevertheless it is one massive hurdle that’s been overcome, and the only potential problems would be with N64 games; the SNES, NES, SMD and TG-16 games would be a lot easier to do.