Samsung's new phone is powerful enough to run Nintendo GameCube games

The newest version of Samsung's best smartphone, the Galaxy S8, is quite a powerful little device. 

Samsung

Beyond what Samsung's telling us about the phone's internals, we've got an even better example of just how much horsepower the S8 is packing: One intrepid YouTuber managed to get the Nintendo GameCube running on the phone.

Complimentary Tech Event

Transform talent with learning that works

Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

And yes, so we're clear, we're talking about Nintendo's fourth major game console - the little box known as GameCube:

Evan Amos, Wikimedia

The Nintendo GameCube launched in 2001. 16 years later and the entire console can be emulated smoothly on a smartphone.

The GameCube is home to some of Nintendo's biggest games: "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker," "Super Smash Bros. Melee," "Mario Kart: Double Dash," and many more. It was Nintendo's response to the PlayStation 2 from Sony and the original Xbox from Microsoft, and it's a beloved console among millions.

And Samsung's new phone, the Galaxy S8, is capable of re-creating the entire experience - "emulating" the console and its games. That's no easy task; it's tremendously taxing on processors to re-create an entire piece of hardware, even though said piece of hardware is over a decade old. 

Even more impressively, the S8 does it smoothly - see for yourself:

The S8 isn't available to buy just yet; it's up for sale as of April 21, and costs around $700. When it does arrive, you can download the GameCube emulator (known as "Dolphin") and test out this stuff for yourself. One note of caution: emulation is a legal gray area.

Notably, Nintendo's new Switch console doesn't offer access to Nintendo GameCube games - not yet, anyway. Nintendo's said it will have more to share on that front later in 2017.