Before today, Nvidia made parts to put inside gadgets other people build. Today, it has its own gaming device: a Tegra 4-powered handheld system with both an integrated controller and screen. It does 4k. But what the hell is it, exactly?
Nvidia says the device, nicknamed "Project Shield," will pack a 10-hour battery life, audio quality on par with a Jambox, a console-quality controller (bumpers, triggers, analog sticks, and a d-pad), and of course it runs Android. No skin. In the back you'll find plenty of ports: HDMI, micro-USB, microSD, and audio-out. So far, so good—but when you walk a bit further, all you see is excess.
There's the screen: a 5-inch, 720p display with touch capabilities too. The entire package looks to be about the size of an Xbox 360 controller, plus that screen popped out. This is a serious shot at not only Android gaming, but all mobile gaming, and even the likes of Wii U. Why? The thing isn't just an Android GameBoy—it's a mobile set top box and computer, capable of playing 4k movies to a full 4k TV via HDMI, hopping around Facebook, multitasking with your music in the background, and pretty much everything else you'd want from a modern tablet or smartphone. It just happens to look like a big green x-treme gaming controller.
The device can pull down Nvidia-optimized Android titles from the Tegrazone gaming library, as well as the ever-popular Steam via your existing computer. And there's multiplayer, of course, because this thing attempts bloody everything: Nvidia showed off two Project Shield handsets battling each other in the graphically-intensive mech grudge match Hawken, and it looked as smooth as you'd want it to. But, again, the two guys were sitting right next to each other on the same network.
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