NVIDIA just announced a new member of its family of hardware devices: SHIELD. Just SHIELD. Powered by NVIDIA's latest 8-core, Maxwell GPU Tegra X1 SoC, SHIELD will run Android TV and act as a game playing, multimedia watching, GRID streaming set-top box.
Odd naming scheme aside, the SHIELD looks to be an impressive little device, sitting on your home theater or desk, bringing a ton of connectivity and performance to your TV. Running Android TV means the SHIELD will have access to the entire library of Google Play media including music, movie and apps. SHIELD supports 4K video playback at 60 Hz thanks to an HDMI 2.0 connection and fully supports H.265/HEVC decode thanks to Tegra X1 processor.
Speaking of the Tegra X1, the SHIELD will include the power of 256 Maxwell architecture CUDA cores and will easily provide the best Android gaming performance of any tablet or set-top box on the market. This means gaming, and lots of it, will be possible on SHIELD. Remember our many discussions about Tegra-specific gaming ports from the past? That trend will continue and more developers are realizing the power that NVIDIA is putting into this tiny chip.
In the box you'll get the SHIELD set-top unit and a SHIELD Controller, the same released with the SHIELD Tablet last year. A smaller remote controller that looks similar to the one used with the Kindle Fire TV will cost a little extra as will the stand that sets the SHIELD upright.
Pricing on the new SHIELD set-top will be $199, shipping in May.
Can it run FlappyBird ?
Can it run FlappyBird ?
Is this the announcement they
Is this the announcement they said they had been working 5 years on?
I think Nvidia does a lot of great things for PC gaming, but I have zero interest in this. Part of this is because I don’t think enough developers will ever code for Tegra, regardless of its technically prowess and part of it is because I’d rather have some form of windows or linux based computer hooked up to the T.V.
Wait, I thought Nvidia had a
Wait, I thought Nvidia had a device that was going to change the way we play games forever. That was a big fat lie. But sorry Nvidia your way to late to the game on this one.
My old AMD system is currently hooked up to my TV and it can run Windows games and Android games using Blue stacks app player.
Zero interest in this.
Give
Zero interest in this.
Give us architecture agnostic SLI Nvidia!
I thought directx 12 was
I thought directx 12 was bringing all this anyway?
This is a machine stuck in
This is a machine stuck in the middle. I’m not sold on whether it has a clear vision – a real reason for me to buy. The way I see it, there’s little hope for exclusives, it has an OS that caters to any device (and hence, few developers will optimize for this device), a stable of re-run titles, etc.
FireTV Stick or Chromecast cover off all multimedia functionality at 1/4th – 1/5th the price.
Xbox 360 / PS3 do everything this does with hundreds of exclusives. Per the presentation, it’s moderately more powerful than a 360… and the Shield is $30-$50 more than the PS3 or 360 (price from Amazon). NVidia includes a controller with their game system?!? What an innovation! Er…
Xbox One, which is massively more graphically capable is $150 more and comes with games (and yes, a controller). Steam Machines will start at the price of Xbox One / PS4, and are full on PCs with AAA games.
This system isn’t the future – it’s not quite the past, but it’s not “future proof” or selling a vision or presenting a new way to game.
The presentation didn’t sell me. 5 years in the making? Or made 5 years ago?
Also Valve just announced
Also Valve just announced it’s steam link device for only $50 where you can stream all your games if it’s on windows/mac or even Linux to your TV.
An Valve new steam controller is also $50.
Steam Link would be perfect
Steam Link would be perfect if it supported HDMI 2.0 for 4K60 and 4K Netflix/Amazon streaming.
“Zero interest in this”.
“Zero interest in this”. Xbox/PS/PC have tons of exclusives, SHIELD is useless as a gaming device.
this must be marketed to the
this must be marketed to the casuals and nvidia fans for a set top box maybe i’ll get one but for gaming nah
this must be marketed to the
this must be marketed to the casuals and nvidia fans for a set top box maybe i’ll get one but for gaming nah
Wii U is doomed! Or is it?
Wii U is doomed! Or is it?
They priced it at $199 so
They priced it at $199 so they can offer it on sale for $149 later? And the cost to make it is around $60, good job nVidia. I hope AMD gets the 390X done right so you can start going down.
HTPC
HTPC