nVidia’s Project Shield Announced
nVidia have today announced Project SHIELD, a very bizarre looking portable device which will be capable of playing Android titles from the Google Play store and streaming PC games from machines using nVidia’s GeForce GTX 650 series of GPU’s. Intrigued like me? Hit the break for some more details.
SHIELD looks like an outsized console controller (think the monster from the original Xbox) with speakers and a 5-inch touch screen display stuck on top. It will use nVidia’s new Tegra 4 processor and promises hours of gameplay on a single charge. You will be able to play games on the device itself or hook it up to a TV for big screen sofa based gaming. Playing Android titles is to be expected, but being able to stream games from Steam is very innovative. The streaming though will only work when wirelessly connected to a PC running the aforementioned GeForce GTX 650 graphics card, or a higher model. A few big names from the industry supplied quotes in the press release about the device while you can also find out more here.
Yves Guillemot, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ubisoft, said: “Ubisoft is always excited about new hardware developments, and Project Shield promises to bring both mobile and PC gamers a great new gaming experience. Seeing the PC version of Assassin’s Creed III run on the device is a great example of this, and further strengthens Ubisoft’s long-standing relationship with NVIDIA.”
Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder of Epic Games, said: “With Project Shield, NVIDIA brings an uncompromising, high-performance console experience to mobile devices. Amazing games including ‘Real Boxing’ and ‘Hawken,’ which utilize the latest Unreal Engine technology, look fantastic on Project SHIELD. This is just the beginning, and we’re truly excited to see what more Unreal Engine developers will do with so much horsepower in such a compact gaming device.”
Bill Wagner, chief production officer at Meteor Entertainment, said: “Coming from the openness of a PC platform, we love how accessible Project SHIELD is, and the flexibility it gives gamers everywhere. Project SHIELD gives us the cutting-edge ability to bring a huge free-to-play PC game like ‘Hawken’ to the handheld gaming audience.”