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Be jealous: Nintendo is releasing HD Wii games on the Nvidia Shield TV in China

Published Dec 5th, 2017 10:06AM EST
Image: Nintendo

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While Switch owners around the world wait anxiously for news about the Virtual Console, gamers in China received a pleasant surprise from Nintendo this week. In addition to launching its Shield TV streaming box in China today, Nvidia has teamed up with Nintendo to bring HD ports of popular Wii and GameCube games to the device.

Details regarding the partnership are still hazy, but at least three Nintendo games are currently available on the Nvidia Shield TV, including New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Punch-Out!!, all of which appear to be running in HD. The games cost RMB 68, which translates to around $10 a piece.

Unfortunately, all signs point to this being a permanent exclusive for China, as Nintendo has never even begun to hint at its games being made available on other platforms in the West. But the most fascinating part of this deal is seeing footage of official Nintendo ports running on an Android device, which Daniel Ahmad shared on Twitter:

Nintendo has yet to launch the Switch in China, so this may simply be a stopgap until it can get its new hybrid console on the market. Either way, it’s an encouraging sign to see Nintendo break from tradition and allow its games to legally and officially appear on a console that it didn’t make and release itself.

If you happen to live in China, you can pick up an Nvidia Shield TV starting today for RMB 1499 ($227). The rest of us will sit around waiting for YouTube videos of Twilight Princess in HD to show up in the coming days.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.