As revealed by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, Nintendo is teaming up with NVIDIA to release some of its Wii and Gamecube games in China for the first time. While NVIDIA’s Tegra chip is at the heart of the Nintendo Switch, in this case, the games will run on the NVIDIA Shield, which hit the market today in China. NVIDIA confirmed that New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and PUNCH-OUT!! are all available now for the Shield in 1080p, while others including Super Mario Galaxy are “coming soon.”
Ahmad posted videos of Nintendo games running on the Shield (sourced from Weibo) and provided some pricing info, saying that the Shield in China costs 1499 RMB (about $ 226), while each remastered game costs 68 RMB (about $ 10). We wouldn’t expect anything about this arrangement to expand beyond China in the foreseeable future, but the licensing arrangement is a way for Nintendo to crack the market officially. We don’t have much information on the Shield that’s available in China, but it is different from the US version, with local “content, store, search and more” plus a voice control AI powered by Baidu.
Here is some gameplay of Twilight Princess running on Nvidia Shield.
It is said to be running in HD (Not sure what that means exactly in terms of the port).
Wii games on Shield will cost RMB 68. pic.twitter.com/M84WfV9eWE
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) December 5, 2017
NVIDIA:
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: Daniel Ahmad (Twitter)
