edithrenas: Hands on with NVIDIA's 'Project Shield'

Monday, January 7, 2013

Hands on with NVIDIA's 'Project Shield'

NVIDIA Project Shield.

We get our first look at NVIDIA's Tegra 4 processor, and the future of Android gaming

It's hard not to get excited about NVIDIA's "Project Shield," the Android-based hand-held gaming system it unveiled this week at CES in Los Vegas. For one, it's really the biggest piece of news thus far. And for another -- it's just friggin' cool. NVIDIA has taken the traditional gaming-style controller, packed its brand-new Tegra 4 system inside of it, added a 5-inch, clamshell 720p display (NVIDIA's calling it "retinal") and added some truly astonishing gameplay. Consider:

It's running a relatively stock user interface. The nerds love that.
It runs any Android app. If it works on a phone or tablet now, it should work on Project Shield.
There's one-touch access to NVIDIA's "Tegra Zone," a curated section of Android applications tweaked specifically for NVIDIA's processors.
Steam. If you play a game on Steam, you can play it here, too.
PC gaming. NVIDIA's been showing off this tech for some time now, and it's really dialed in here. Your gaming rig does the heavy lifting, beaming the video to Project Shield, which also serves as the controller.

It's not without some hurdles in the way of success (what is), but, yeah. We're excited.