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NVIDIA Announces SHIELD Game Console
MojoKid writes: NVIDIA held an event in San Francisco last night at GDC, where the company unveiled a new Android TV streamer, game console, and supercomputer, as NVIDIA's Jen Hsun Huang calls it, all wrapped up in a single, ultra-slim device called NVIDIA SHIELD. The SHIELD console is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra X1 SoC with 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, Gig-E and 802.11ac 2x2 MIMO WiFi. It's also 4K Ultra-HD Ready with 4K playback and capture up to 60 fps (VP9, H265, H264) with encode/decode with full hardware processing. The company claims the console provides twice the performance of an Xbox 360. NVIDIA demo'ed the device with Android TV, streaming music and HD movies and browsing social media. The device can stream games from a GeForce powered PC to your television or from NVIDIA's GRID cloud gaming service, just like previous NVIDIA SHIELD devices. Native Android games will also run on the SHIELD console. NVIDIA's plan is to offer a wide array of native Android titles in the SHIELD store, as well as leverage the company's relationships with game developers to bring top titles to GRID. The device was shown playing Gearbox's Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, Doom 3 BFG Edition, Metal Gear Solid V, the Unreal Engine 4 Infiltrator demo and yes, even Crysis 3.
I thought they had "unveiled" essentially the same thing ~3 years ago.
More consoles that support PC games...means more developers make games for PC...means more games for ME to pirate! YEAH!!!
So a legitimate launch announcement of a new product in the tech space with a new processing engine on board is an advertisement? Then by rights virtually every news post of a new product across the web is an ad. Come on, that gets old. This post simply reports the news and the company's claims, it doesn't pass opinion or judgment on it, just reports the news.
As soon as I saw the console with its angular X-styled ridges and lime green LED "V-slash" I immediately thought XBox. So possibly not a good choice in styling if you want to stand out from the crowd.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
What retarded backronym have they come up with to justify writing it "SHIELD"? And how about "NVIDIA"?
On the other side of balance, I found this extremely exciting for many reasons and hadn't seen the release announcement anywhere until this morning. But then I guess that's the nice thing about the interweb. Opinion is varied, and we can use /. as an opinion platform to express to everyone interested in reading exactly how we feel. And it's all ok!
For what it's worth I like the look of it - smart consoles is an interesting industry at a very interesting stage in its development. I can't help but feel as an industry it's at the point where mobile phones got to just before they exploded and took over in areas and use-cases no-one in their right mind thought possible at the time.
Perhaps one day our TVs will just be really nice, high quality display-only devices, and the value will be in selling the access platform driven off devices like this... oh wait, I think we might be there already...
As you were!
3GB RAM??
What, did they run out of it or something?
Unless they can get a bunch of developer on-board for *native* games, then nobody will care.
The "streaming games" thing is a red-herring. For some reason, everyone seems to think it's a great idea, and it *is*, but not as the PRIMARY way to play games. Especially if you need a fairly powerful PC with an Nvidia card to do so. Streaming over the internet is okay, but it's SO dependent on your connection quality (and your bandwidth limits). It can work, though, obviously. But I wouldn't want to be stuck with it for AAA titles.
Still, for $199, they might have something here - a relatively cheap and powerful console that runs Android software could be pretty cool. It would almost be like a return to the old "home computer" days.
Dear Nvidia
I don't want a console. I have an ultra-fast system that plays games, has wide compatibility, can hook up to a TV wirelessles or via HDMI, can surf the web, run netflix, watch live TV, etc. It's called my PC and it's faster. I also have no interest in using joysticks to control anything ever.
Sincerely,
everyone
Honestly, I don't doubt the technical feasibility of an Android console, but they just don't seem to be catching on.
I was one of the "early adopters" that bought an Ouya. I figured I would mostly use it for XBMC anyways and the games would just be a bonus. Thankfully XBMC works OK as the games never really materialized there (the Final Fantasy ports are about the only thing decent available).
I also bought a FireTV - again, mostly as a video device (Netflix, Hulu) for the living room TV. Again - the games haven't really taken off. The Telltale games are available on it (but then again they're available almost everywhere) and I did see SW: Knights of the Old Republic was made available for it, but overall its pretty stale.
Personally, I'm not going to be rushing out for this one until it proves itself to not be another flop. The only thing that MIGHT would interest me would be the ability to stream games from a PC, but all the steaming options I've seen in the past recommend a wireless or "robust" Wifi connection, which I generally interpret to mean it'll suck over WIFI.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I think it may be a tough sell:
1. The Xbox One and PS4 are established gaming consoles with known names. This is new.
2. The Xbox One and PS4 have a big array of well known and popular titles available on it with interfaces designed specifically for use with a console remote. This game has very few, and lots of Android games not designed to work with a console remote. You need an internet connection to set up a game and to play, but you don't need a high speed connection during play to stream most of the content.
3. The Xbox One and PS4 have 500GB of storage - which is pathetic, considering how cheap a 2TB hard drive is these days. But 500GB sure beats 16GB.
4. The Xbox One and PS4 can play DVDs and Blu Rays. This can't. It can stream them, but the number of potential buyers with home media centers and their entire movie collection ripped for streaming is almost certainly much smaller than the number of potential buyers with DVDs and Blu Ray disks.
On the other hand:
1. This thing is cheaper.
2. If their game streaming service doesn't suck and the pricing is good, the game selection becomes way more attractive. It's still, so far, not as good as on one of the lead consoles. But I have to admit that spending, say, $10 or $15 per month to access to 30+ games looks more appealing than spending $50 or $60 per game even though the latter can be cheaper if you don't buy that many games over the life of the console.
3. Eventually I think most people - especially kids just entering the workforce now or in the next few years - may get out of the habit of buying DVDs and Blu Rays entirely and keep their entire movie collection in Vudu/Amazon Prime/Google Play/iTunes/whatever, in which case the lack of a drive is irrelevant. I have 300-odd DVDs (most purchased used), but I'm an old bastard.
Soon to be renamed to Hydra
And the Shield Portable has been discontinued.
Which is a real shame, because all my friends that see mine want one - I bring it to work, and the general reaction is 'Whoa, what IS that?' followed by 'Does it run emulators?' and 'Where can I get it?' - to which the answer is now 'Ebay, for more than double the MSRP. If you're lucky.'
I really hope they make a Portable 2. The thing really is great for playing all sorts of games on.
I hope so. I miss the console wars of the 90's Walking in the snow for an hour each way to rent Nintendo, SAGA and Turbo GFX games.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Imagine a beowolf cluster of those things!
/relatively_low_effort_joke
How I've know about SHIELD (and even held it in my hand at a dev event in what Americans call Eastern Europe) about a year ago. Not trying be sarcastic, but how is this an announcement?
It'll be an easy sell for me, not Sony and not MS.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The company claims the console provides twice the performance of an Xbox 360.
This console is said to have twice the power of a console that was superceeded by it's next gen counterpart 16 months ago. I don't know that this is the strongest selling point for a console unless that was a typo and it was supposed to say Xbox One.
Sounds a lot like OnLive's 'microconsole', except with some real horsepower.
I mean what's one of the biggest draws of the PC platform? Steam sales! Yet I see new PC games that are just a few months old going for 40+% off easy.
The publisher makes more revenue from each copy sold in a Steam sale than from each used console game disc sold by GameStop.
I understand and respect that point of view. But I'm not sure there are enough of us Sony and MS haters to sustain the business model - any more than there are enough of us Sony and MS haters to make DRM-free films the norm or Linux the dominant desktop operating system.
You could try one of JXD's gaming tablets, such as the JXD S5110b or the JXD S7300.
Well iff they can launch it before X Mas they might get somewhere but they have to have some more momentum.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It'll be an easy sell for me, not Sony and not MS.
It's ability to play PC games is based on streaming them from a Windows machine, so it's tied to MS the same as any Windows gaming box would be.
That's essentially what it is, except it plays crappy android titles alongside GRID streaming and local PC game streaming...but ONLY from windows machines with Nvidia cards.
At least the PS TV has better native titles.
I think it was Apple that started naming their products the same name. If I told you that a bought an iMac which one do you think i was refering to? The one from last year? From 5 years ago? The one from 15 years ago? All called iMac. even the "G3" ,"G4" and G5" are not officially part of the name.
Will NVIDIA be paying the Microsoft Tax?
Dice floods Slashdot with product launches as "news".
I wonder how much the vendors are paying them to promote their products?
I don't care what class of hardware they're shilling on a given day. Product launches belong on hardware review sites, not an IT related discussion forum.
WTF is there to "discuss" about a product launch? Whether you hate/love the vendor? Whether you believe their "increased spec X" claims? To rant that you'll never buy one or rave that you've got to have one?
Where is the meat to such discussions?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I totally disagree. This is a new product with a total new Android platform architecture on board but whatever floats your boat.
Just to make sure I understand you correctly:
the fact that on first run it loaded to a "Press Start" screen felt like sloppy QA
In other words, make sure key labels are correct for the current key bindings, and not hardcoded to the names of Xbox 360 controller buttons. Also make options in on-screen menus clickable with the mouse.
clearly explaining why the keys are where they are by default
How could such an explanation be done correctly?
PC users are typically sitting closer to smaller higher resolution screens whereas console users are typically sitting further back, looking at larger, lower resolution displays.
In other words, Steam Big Picture is atypical. And what's the difference between a 1080p HDTV and a 1080p desktop PC monitor, or between a 720p HDTV and a 720p laptop monitor?
PC games aren't going away because I bought a PlayStation or a Wii U or an XBox.
You by yourself won't cause PC games to go away. But if enough other gamers abandon PC for consoles, even more major game studios will consider the PC unprofitable.
All I'm trying to do is explain why anyone would buy a console and what the upsides are.
In that case, does this page sum up something close to your position?
I want a box that plugs into the TV and plays games with out being fiddly, loud, power sucking and horrible.
Integrated graphics have become adequate, and I don't see how a PC with integrated graphics is especially "loud" or "power sucking" compared to a PS3, 360, PS4, or Xbox One. I may be willing to grant you "fiddly" and "horrible" if you can explain them.
My consumer choices do not require your approval.
I never meant to imply that they did. If I did end up implying so, please help me figure out where so that I can learn not to do so again. I'm only trying to understand how consoles are ideal for your use case with the intent of figuring out how to make other platforms less bad. Or is wanting to know what makes a platform good itself an "entitled attitude"?
Just to deal with fiddly and horrible, the second you have to think about a file system or running processes or system configurations, you've blown it as far as UX for games go. So there's fiddly and horrible for you.
If you're moving saved games from one console hard drive or memory card to another, or freeing up GBs on a console's hard drive for a downloadable game or for a disc game's mandatory install, that's a file system. And as for "system configurations", some console makers' naming conventions don't make this easy either: "DS" vs. "3DS" vs. "2DS" vs. "New 3DS", or "Xbox" vs. "Xbox One".
I doubt a PC can match the idle power consumption
Anyone know how much power a PC uses in suspend?