A thought on the PS4

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Having heard some interesting things about the PS4, I had a madcap idea, on the idea of it being based on PC architecture.

The madness I present is this: Given time, would it be entirely possible for the PS4 to emulate the Wii-U, and possibly to better specs than that of the Wii-U itself, in a hilariously tragic fashion?

The touchscreen isn't big enough. You'd need a WiiU controller capable of connecting to a PS4.

Considering the architecture it would be a fairly simple process to port Dolphin over and have a fully functioning Wii U in the PS4. The main challenge would be in finding an exploit to allow third party code to run. As for the controller issue, that may be difficult since the Wii U controller uses a proprietary type of wireless connectivity based on IEEE 802.11n. Emulating standard Wii games wouldn't pose a problem though, since the Wii controller connects via standard Bluetooth and the PS4 processor would be more than capable of running the games at full speed. They would look better running from the PS4 than the Wii as well simply due to being able to run at a much higher rendering resolution.

Assuming someone figures out a way to hack the PS4 to run homebrew software like that, and we already know the PS Vita will connect to the PS4 for features similar to the Wii U already, its possible that would work as a replacement for the Wii U gamepad.

I think people are underestimating what a difficult and processor intensive process emulation is.

Going by the logic in this thread the PS3 should have been able to emulate the Wii a few times over. That didn't happen.

the PS3's cell processor is by all accounts, notoriously difficult to program for. I think what the original poster is going with, is that the PS4 should be much easier to program things for being based on a more common PC-based architecture. It's still a stretch, and the first issue will of course being able to run homebrew on the PS4 in the first place, since no one has one yet we obviously don't know how well Sony will have locked down the system in that regard.

The thing about the PS3, is that while it was powerful, it was designed in the same vein as the N64, to be difficult to program for. If Sony meant for it to be that way, I don't know.

With the PS4 being a step closer to PCs, one would logically conclude the feasibility of emulation on a grander level.