Nvidia Shield Ships On July 31

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Nvidia Shield Ships On July 31


Fans of Nvidia's entry into the portable console market won't have to wait much longer to get their hands on the device.

The Nvidia Shield will mark the graphics card giant's foray into the world of portable gaming. The company has been hyping the device for quite some time, and early orderers won't have to wait too much longer to get their hands on it. On an announcement on the Nvidia homepage, the company has announced that the Shield will begin shipping on July 31.

The Shield team's official statement is as follows:

"We want to thank you for your patience and for sticking with us through the shipment delay of your Shield. We have great news to share with you - your Shield will ship on July 31st.

Our goal has always been to ship the perfect product, so we made sure we submitted Shield to the most rigorous mechanical testing and quality assurance standards in the industry. We built Shield because we love playing games, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do."

The Shield was first announced back in January of this year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121364-Nvidia-Announces-Project-SHIELD-Portable-Gaming-Device], as an android-based system boasting big screen, a full-sized controller, and the ability to even play some PC games. Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang said that the Shield's engineers were inspired by the rapid growth of mobile and cloud technologies, allowing gamers to play away from fixed boxes.

It was originally set to retail for $349, but Nvidia dropped the price down to just $299 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125247-Nvidias-SHIELD-Handheld-Drops-To-299] a few months ago.

It certainly looks like a cool little device, perhaps for PC gamers that are looking for a way to get some gaming on the go. Will you be picking one up on launch, or is the no room in the handheld gaming market for another contender?

Source: Nvidia [http://www.nvidia.com/content/newsletters/web/shield/shield-ships-july31-web.html]

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The White Hunter

Basment Abomination
Oct 19, 2011
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In the tiny slice of the pie that Nintendo doesn't gobble up there's room for more competition, but I sincerely hope they aren't expecting this to take the world by storm, because it just isn't going to manage it.

The reason Sony fails to take big hunks of market share in handhelds isn't because the Vita is worse, some of it's pricing does factor in, but the real killer is Pokemon. People will buy (and I mean millions of people) will buy a handheld just for pokemon. It's the very definition of a "killer app".

The Shield could be a neat gadget though.
 

nickpy

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Oct 9, 2010
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I believe the principle with PC gamers is that (provided you have a suitable nVidia graphics card - which is not a given) that you can stream PC games from your main PC to the Shield, so essentially it's like how the Vita can in theory to Remote Play from the PS3 (if you can find a game that supports it!)...

The main problem I see here is the aforementioned hardware requirements of both an nVidia card and the Shield itself, and internet speeds and lack of available connections preventing it from being useful anywhere but on your own wireless network - and if you're in range of your own wireless network, why not just use your actual PC to play the PC game?
 

The White Hunter

Basment Abomination
Oct 19, 2011
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nickpy said:
I believe the principle with PC gamers is that (provided you have a suitable nVidia graphics card - which is not a given) that you can stream PC games from your main PC to the Shield, so essentially it's like how the Vita can in theory to Remote Play from the PS3 (if you can find a game that supports it!)...

The main problem I see here is the aforementioned hardware requirements of both an nVidia card and the Shield itself, and internet speeds and lack of available connections preventing it from being useful anywhere but on your own wireless network - and if you're in range of your own wireless network, why not just use your actual PC to play the PC game?
Vita remote play pretty much doesn't work except for PS1 titles. Althougth with PS1 titles it's pretty seamless provided you have a stable connection anywhere on the planet.

It's a cool feature and I hope they implement it well with the PS4, perhaps let me stream Vita games from my PS4 rather than sponge up memory card space. It's unfortunate that thus far they have not delivered on it.
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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It's too expensive for what will probably end up a gloried portable emulator for other consoles.
 

Gorrath

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Feb 22, 2013
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Well, if they are smart enough to make it so I can access my steam library and it can play some of the less hardware intensive steam games I own reliably, mark me down for one. I would kill to have a non-laptop solution for playing my steam games remotely, even if it can't play things like Skyrim and Arkham. I'd be happy if it can just run things like The Binding of Isaac, Reus and Hotline Miami.
 

MrBenSampson

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Oct 8, 2011
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If this thing had 4G support, and could stream games from a service like OnLive, then I would consider buying one. As it is now, it doesn't interest me at all.
 

Benni88

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Oct 13, 2011
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I've played on a Shield and I didn't really think it was all that. The screen is of a nice quality, and ergonomically the controller is comfortable. However, I couldn't help but think that the competition does handhelds better (it's actually quite a big object, doesn't fit as easily into pockets/bags as a DS or Vita).

I was quite surprised that nVidia would opt for a project like this. I'm interested to see how it turns out, but for the price and product itself, I don't think I'll be picking one up.
 

Baresark

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Dec 19, 2010
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I just don't see a point. It will only really Stream my games in my house. I would rather play PC games on my 27" monitor if I'm home. Also, I see comparison's to Vita, only the Vita has essentially a huge library as it plays it's own titles, all PSOne titles and all PSP titles. I bought one recently, and I am getting so much you use out of it, I'm blown away. And it comes to work with me to fill the empty space when I have it. Pause or stop at anytime, resume at any time.
 

Jupiter065

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Aug 12, 2008
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Am I misremembering, or didn't they announce that you have to be on the same local network as the PC in order for the streaming to work? In which case you can pretty much only use this thing for playing your PC games on your couch, except with laggy controls due to WiFi latency and on teeny tiny eye-strain-o-vision.

I'll take 6!