NVIDIA recently announced its new portable gaming console running on Android’s Jelly Bean during a press conference, and this little gadget is too impressive for its own good.
Project Shield, to put simply, is a controller screen combo (don’t throw it) with a built-in miniature audio system, and features the new Tegra 4, which NVIDIA touts as “the world’s fastest mobile processor.” Offering five to ten hours of battery life during game play and up to 24 hours of HD video is plenty of time to find the nearest save point, watch a movie, and keep playing.
That’s right, even more buttons in the middle.
The multi-touch screen offers a high definition display (720p) and presents the sumptuous buffet of brain candy for gamers to gorge on through the android market, Google play, and the new NVIDIA TegraZone online store. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, it can play Steam games from your computer. Project Shield looks a little bulky, but I’m sure it will fit my hand like a glove slathered in super glue.
Steam Games? From my PC? We’re talking the likes of DCUO, Portal, or Transformers: Fall of Cybertron?
This thing essentially looks like a mini laptop or tablet with a controller instead of a keyboard. Not a bad design, even if it does look a little weird, The ability to play PC games on it is appealing, but less appealing when you consider that it requires a compatible Nvidia GPU. It’s understandable since this is an Nvidia product, but then need to buy an new GPU on top of the handheld itself to enjoy the feature makes this a highly unlikely buy for me.
Personally, as far as Android-based efforts to get beyond casual mobile gaming are concerned, I’m a bit more interested in the Ouya right now and have in fact pre-ordered one. It’s no console killer and it may not even succeed on its own terms, but I think it’s an experiment worth supporting. Kind of wish I’d got in on the Kickstarter, but they got more than enough support there without me.