Originally posted by RPG Hacker
I think you're referring to "Nintendon't", but that one is actually an interpreter for Gamecube games, so you could consider it some kindo f emulation. The games are still not running on the Wii U natively. Yes, they ran natively on the Wii, but that is because the Wii actually had Gamecube hardware in it. The Wii U only has Wii hardware in it, not Gamecube hardware.
Although, of course, since the games run on Wii U at all, it proves that in some way or another the Wii U should actually be able to emulate Gamecube games.
The Wii didn't have GameCube hardware in it. The Wii's CPU is literally an overclocked version of the GameCube's CPU. Nintendon't is an interpreter, not an emulator, it isn't emulating the gamecube hardware. It's basically just serving as a wrapper for the native GC support, allowing you to load the games from an ISO. And it's running on the Wii hardware, not the Wii U hardware, you can run it on a regular Wii too (and it's the same program).
The only actual issue is the disc drive, the Wii U disc drive can't read gamecube discs. But there's nothing at all stopping them from putting GC games on VC.