Ever wanted to play Wii games, but couldn’t, simply because you don’t own that Nintendo console? If you happen to have an Android tablet instead, you can now enjoy Super Mario and other Wii games on it.
The whole cross-platform thing does not end here, though. The setup also includes a PC that runs an emulator, as well as an X-Box 360 wireless controller. Obiwan 22, as the man behind this project recommends himself on Youtube, has plenty of experience in cross-platform gaming, since he also managed to play Wii games on PSP and iPod Touch.
As he demonstrates in the above video, Wii games can be played on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet that runs Android 3.2. First of all, he launches Splashtop Remote Desktop HD for Android, which is a tablet app that gives remote access to a PC over VNC (Virtual Network Computing). Then, the tablet gets connected to the keyboard-extended battery-USB-SD card reader combo. Since it features the PC desktop on the display, along with sound and controls from the computer, there is not much of a difference left between this Android tablet and a netbook or notebook that is running Windows. The computer is running the Dolphin Wii emulator, which is also available for MacOS, so chances are people could also use a Mac instead of a PC for this setup.
The XBox 360 wireless controller is connected to the tablet via USB, so people who own an Android tablet other than Asus Transformer may not be able to play Wii games on their device. Also, the number of Wii games that can be run this way is limited, too, as the ones that require a Wii remote are certainly out of the question.
The bottom line is that all this setup does is to stream games from the computer to an Android tablet. At the moment, the tablets based on this OS (or on any OS, for that matter) are not powerful enough to run Wii emulators on their own, so streaming is the only solution. The video that shows how Super Mario Galaxy 2 can be streamed to and played on an Android tablet should be taken as a proof of concept. Even though Obiwan 22 claims that any game can be run on any mobile device, I’m a bit skeptic about the playability of some titles.
If you liked this post, please check Wii-U and the Wii 2 release details.
