Rumor: Zelda: Twilight Princess on China’s NVIDIA Shield uses emulation; new footage

Nintendo teamed up with NVIDIA to bring GameCube and Wii titles to the NVIDIA Shield in China. Folks are now getting their hands on the device, and an interesting discovery appears to have been made.

Speedrunner Pheenoh is one such person with access to the new version of the NVIDIA Shield. He came across some changes after streaming Zelda: Twilight Princess for over eight hours, such as how Epona and Link cannot be renamed at the start of a new game. It also loads very fast – apparently even quicker than Twilight Princess HD on Wii U.

One of the most important pieces of news is that, on the NVIDIA Shield, Twilight Princess is actually emulated. There have been conflicting reports as to whether these titles would be emulated or run natively, but now we seem to have an answer straight from the code itself. Pheenoh noticed this after looking at executable strings within the game.

As of now, the NVIDIA Shield capable of playing GameCube and Wii titles is exclusive to China. However, this news could bode well for Switch. Based on today’s discovery, Nintendo could potentially have a working GameCube and Wii emulator that could be quite compatible with its new console.

Here’s an extensive look at Twilight Princess running on the NVIDIA Shield:

Thanks to JasonBall for the tip.