Nvidia has announced a new portable gaming device named, Project SHIELD.
So what is it?
Project SHIELD has been designed to bridge together two platforms; PC, and Android into one effective unit for gamers that want a bit of portability. Running on Google Android’s latest Jelly Bean operating system, it will allow all Android apps to be installed/played, including ones offered on Nvidia’s own TegraZone game store.
The device actually looks similar to a Xbox 360 pad in form, but provides a 5-inch, 1280x720p HD multi-touch display, with a high pixel density of 294dpi, which can simply fold down on top when not in use, and has a HDMI output for outputting the display to a TV at resolutions of up to 4K (No TV on the market in the UK can produce such a resolution as of yet, and is well above the 1080p we know of now).
If you are lucky enough to own a Nvidia 650 GPU or higher in your PC (and we expect most people who buy this product will have, or better) then your PC will be able to stream video data directly to the SHIELD, allowing you to play games around your home. This all works using some clever technologies built into the Nvidia GPU and in the SHIELD controller, which streams using a local Wi-Fi connection, and sends data back and forth to allow the game to be playable.
This essentially means you can play any PC title you have on your collection, including the wide host of Steam games you may have at your disposal.
“Project SHIELD was created by NVIDIA engineers who love to game and imagined a new way to play,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer at NVIDIA. “We were inspired by a vision that the rise of mobile and cloud technologies will free us from our boxes, letting us game anywhere, on any screen. We imagined a device that would do for games what the iPod and Kindle have done for music and books, letting us play in a cool new way. We hope other gamers love SHIELD as much as we do.”
If this seems familiar, it may be because the OnLive platform used the same kind of technology to stream video games to your PC to play games locally, that were in fact being processed far away on their own computers. The only difference being, it is now your graphics card doing all the work, and so response times should be a whole lot better, with video quality kept top-notch, as long as your Wi-Fi connection is strong enough. It is also the same kind of technology used to stream video directly to the tablet controller in the Nintendo Wii U.
Where does all the power come from?
The device is one of the first to incorporate Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 processor, offering 72-cores of graphics processing power (6x performance of the older generation Tegra 3), with a quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU designed by ARM. With energy-saving PRISM 2 technology in place, Nvidia state that it can last hours on a single charge. With many games being made with mobile technology in mind, it will mean that you will keep ahead of the game for a longer time. You should not have any issues playing any game out there right now on Android, and certainly not for long time afterwards.
No gamer would be set without a good sound system, and Project SHIELD shouldn’t disappoint here, with a set of stereo speakers, tuned to give the highest quality seen on a portable device, and with bass reflex ports to offer the lowest bass possible. If this isn’t enough for you, and you want a bit more privacy, you also get your standard 3.5mm connector for any headphone you may have.
Patrick Moorhead, president and lead analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said: “The market has waited years for a breakthrough gaming device that offers the flexibility, quality and total enjoyment of Project SHIELD. Few companies other than NVIDIA have the vision, guts and deep gaming experience to have pulled this off.”
For more information and pictures, go to Nvidia’s official SHIELD site.
What do you think of this device? Does it offer something different that may appeal to you?
