Shield TV has enough power to run Wii games

The Dolphin emulator for Android is coming along nicely. Photo: Cult of Android

The Dolphin emulator for Android is coming along nicely. Photo: Cult of Android

The wonderful Dolphin emulator that lets you (illegally) play classic Nintendo games for GameCube and Wii has long been available on Android, but not even today’s most expensive flagships are powerful enough to play them.

NVIDIA’s Shield TV is, however, and as you’ll see in the video below, titles like Phantasy Star Online, Luigi’s Mansion, and Animal Crossing are almost perfectly playable.

It’s not perfect — you may have noticed issues with sound in some games — but it’s a near flawless experience, and with Android-powered devices become more powerful every year, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the experience is as good as the real thing.

As a massive GameCube fan, I can’t wait for that time to come. I’ve actually been thinking about picking up an old console on eBay to play some of my favorite titles, like Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart Double Dash, Metroid Prime, and Star Fox Adventures.