[Ari33]

NVIDIA revealed a new handheld game console last night, to be sold under its own branding; the NVIDIA Project Shield. The portable console looks like an oversized console control pad, however a lid flips up on the top to reveal a 5-inch HD ready screen. The new handheld is powered by NVIDIA’s new Tegra 4 SoC which is based upon ARM’s latest Cortex-A15 design complemented by 72 GPU cores. The new portable gaming device runs “pure Android” and has standard ports and connectors including a MicroSD card slot.

PC games too

An important extra feature of the NVIDIA Project Shield console is that it’s not just designed for playing Android games. NVIDIA explains: “as a wireless receiver and controller, it can stream games from a PC powered by NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX GPUs, accessing titles on its STEAM game library from anywhere in the home.” You’ll need a GTX 600 series card in your PC to use this games streaming facility because it uses the Video Codec Engine video encoder built in to these graphics cards. Pocket-Lint went so far as saying “Think of it like a Wii U for the PC gamer, making it finally possible to easily hook your PC up to your big screen TV in the living room.”  What?  lol

Look at the pictures above and you can come up with your own ideas about the influences that have gone into the design of Project Shield. NVIDIA calls its arrangement of buttons and joysticks a “full-sized console-grade game controller.” With the weight of the screen furthest from the player it looks like NVIDIA have tried to create handling balance by placing the twin analogue control sticks near the front.

NVIDIA Project Shield specs

CPU	NVIDIA Tegra 4 (4+1 Cortex-A15)
GPU	NVIDIA Tegra 4 (72 GPU cores)
Display	5-inch 1280x720 pixels “retinal” touchscreen
OS	Android Jelly Bean, TegraZone
Controller	Ergonomically designed for comfort and precision, including 4 shoulder buttons you can’t see in the pictures above.
Sound	Bass reflex tuned port speaker system
Ports/Connectors	Micro-USB, Micro-HDMI (supports 4K), MicroSD, 3.5mm audio out, Wi-Fi
Battery	38Wh

 

There was no pricing or availability mentioned for this new handheld Android console in the press release but Anandtechreports that “Shield will launch in Q2 at a price competitive with other mobile gaming systems and tablets.” Which means it will cost about US$200, hopefully less. There are quite a few Android powered consoles in the works including the OUYA($99) and highly portable GameStick ($79).

 
 
Only 720p? This would have been amazing 5 years ago but I just cant see it taking off..

 

[Tangster]

It's a portable controller for PC gamers? PC gamer who, by and large prefer mouse and keyboard(or joystick). Huh. Wut? I'm just wondering what Nvidia was thinking smoking when they came up with this.

 

[Ari33]

Yep, Nvidea probably realise that the younger, future generations of gamers will continue to use consoles and tablets as they age, and think that if they can somehow re-introduce the PC element back into handheldgaming they can try and put a stop or at least slow down the trend in an attempt to protect their PC gaming GPU market... cant see it happening though.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

It's a portable controller for PC gamers? PC gamer who, by and large prefer mouse and keyboard(or joystick).

 
 
Depends on the game - there's always games like Darksiders and Madden, plus people who keep only PCs and don't invest on console systems. The market for controllers isn't really that small; the real question is whether PC gamers - who probably have a good controller by now - will pay more for a portable gaming system that doubles as a controller. Maybe when my controller breaks I'll look into this, and since it runs on a battery, I can have Street Fighter on it to keep me sane for such times as renewing my driver's license or on a long flight on a budget airline.

You know who I can imagine will get this? Fathers. They can play Madden on their PCs with it when they have time, but then distract the kids in the backseat during a long drive.

 

 

[RoMee]

I bought this for my phone and tablets and I rarely use it.

 
 
I highly doubt this nividia thingy will be successful, especially if streaming games is  only possible with the GTX600

 

[musical-kage]

720p is still good for a 5 inch screen.
It can output at 4k apparently on new TV's, but no where in europe do we have 4K sets yet, so will have no problem outputting 1080p on other sets.
 
It's interesting how the streaming will work. Very similar to the Wii-U, and pretty much the same as OnLive used to work, albeit from a much closer distance.
 
I think people that buy this will have pretty good PC GPU's to begin with, so having a 600 series GPU doesn't seem too far off the mark.
I don't see a casual player buying this, but its pretty good that to output at a higher quality, it will be using the GPU alone and not your CPU, so you won't have to worry about the PC itself slowing things down.
 
I wrote a writeup on a site I post up on:
http://einfogames.com/news/nvidia-shield-plans-to-shake-things-up/

 

[proton007]

Ok, lets see.
We have Xbox, PS3, Nintendo Wii U.
 
The Nintendo already has a dual screen, and can be used to play games in wireless mode.
The other two are pretty generic, standard gaming consoles.
 
The only potential customer I can see is the PC gamer, but why would they want to run the game on this small screen, especially if they're used to playing on 20+ inches of dual/triple monitor setups?  If you're able to switch the PC on, you should be able to play on it. 
 
Other than that its a 5 inch tablet that is fixed to the huge controller.
 
It obviously wont play any Nintendo DS or PSP games, so that limits the functionality severely.
 
Not going to sell IMO.

 

[Aevum]

i dont think you see the real potential.
 
While the PSP Vita and NDS are closed plataforms with a steep enetry price to develop for them, this device would have its own nvidia game store, but at the same time it would have access to the play store, opening the device to all the games on the android market.
Also allowing the installation of emulators for different plataforms from sega, nentendo, neogeo,
 
But the device design itself is plain horrible, Im hoping nvidia would stick to its philosophy of designing the prototype and then letting each hardware manufacturer do its own thing, i would prefer a design similar to the Nokia N900 or the Sony Xperia play. that seems much more practical, a 5 inch 720p screen similar to the galaxy note and a 3000-5000mA battery, hopfully made by Asus.
 
It could be quite the interesting device, Theres alot of similar chinese consoles the problem is quality is always doubtful, bad screens, bad components, weird arm chips that arent 100% compliant from companies like allwinner and for some reason they always insist on making them look like a tablet or a PSP.
 

 

[proton007]

Quote:

i dont think you see the real potential.
 
While the PSP Vita and NDS are closed plataforms with a steep enetry price to develop for them, this device would have its own nvidia game store, but at the same time it would have access to the play store, opening the device to all the games on the android market.
Also allowing the installation of emulators for different plataforms from sega, nentendo, neogeo,
 
But the device design itself is plain horrible, Im hoping nvidia would stick to its philosophy of designing the prototype and then letting each hardware manufacturer do its own thing, i would prefer a design similar to the Nokia N900 or the Sony Xperia play. that seems much more practical, a 5 inch 720p screen similar to the galaxy note and a 3000-5000mA battery, hopfully made by Asus.
 
It could be quite the interesting device, Theres alot of similar chinese consoles the problem is quality is always doubtful, bad screens, bad components, weird arm chips that arent 100% compliant from companies like allwinner and for some reason they always insist on making them look like a tablet or a PSP.
 

If you say emulators, I can see the potential. But it'll have to be made easy for the average user to install them, and I'm not sure about the legal aspects of that.

 

[musical-kage]

Quote:

If you say emulators, I can see the potential. But it'll have to be made easy for the average user to install them, and I'm not sure about the legal aspects of that.

Well, since it runs off Android, you can get plenty of emulators for it.
I have a Megadrive one that was took off the market, called Tiger or something ready to re-install when I need.

 

[sswam]

That would be pretty cool, sort of like the Pandora
(but more powerful, no keyboard, not so open I guess...).
 
I'd probably go for a phone + iControlPad 2 controller, rather than a dedicated gaming thing.
But, it looks good.  It'd be cool to see one that can run windows games.

 

[Yeti tunes]

I'm not sure why some of you guys are dissenting so quickly. Of course it's for PC gamers - who else has a 600 card??? For me I see it as an addition to a secondary computer. I have a main gaming rig at my desk and I have a secondary gaming rig as an HTPC connected to my TV. When I want to play racing games or 3rd person games I tend to lead toward using a controller because it's easier for me. Right now I just use an xbox 360 controller when I want to play on my HTPC but I would use the nVidia controller instead. As an added bonus it would be a portable gaming rig (which I don't have right now).

 

[Rydock]

Very cool concept. I've heard nothing but good things from CES coverage.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

Very cool concept. I've heard nothing but good things from CES coverage.

IDK, I found it pretty un-inspiring.

 

[wolfetan44]

Crash and burn.