Shield, nVidia 4K Android console for $ 199

    On the console with a mobile chip, you can play Crysis 3


    Today, the head of nVidia, Ren-Sun Huang, spoke about the future competitor for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku, whose power is two times higher than that of the Xbox 360. Until today, the Shield line could see an unusual portable console and gaming tablet. Now this word is called the Android set-top box for the TV with a focus on video games.

    The console has good potential. It is able to play content with 4K resolution at 60 frames per second on a TV with the appropriate characteristics for HDMI or transfer 4K-picture from another more powerful computer thanks to gigabit Ethernet. nVidia notes that this is the first Android TV device with such features. High performance is achieved thanks to the new mobile superchip X1, whichshowed three months ago at the International Consumer Electronics Show .

    In nVidia they say that the most successful moment for the release of the console has been reached: this is a combination of the GRID gaming streaming service, the open Android software platform with unified applications for several devices and cheap hardware.


    Video in 4K takes up large amounts of data, so in addition to 16 GB of internal storage, the console also has two USB 3.0 ports for connecting external drives and a microSD slot. It is possible to stream video from network drives - Shield supports PLEX and XBMC.

    The console has voice control, and it is already working, as Juan showed from the stage. Microphones are installed in the controllers and in the remote control. By the way, the optional minimalistic remote that connects via Bluetooth has a headphone jack. In total, up to 4 controllers can be connected to the console via Wi-Fi Direct, additional ones are bought separately for $ 60 and work up to 40 hours on a single charge. The Shield has 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 7.1 sound and an infrared sensor for conventional remotes. Now work is underway with Logitech, as a result of which the console may have a webcam that can be connected via USB.



    But support for 4K is more to the future and ensuring relevance. nVidia is far from targeting ordinary users who will watch movies and surf the Internet. With twice as much processing power, Shield consumes significantly less power than the previous generation Xbox 360 console. The X1 chip has so much processing power that you can run Crysis 3 at 30 frames per second on the console . This fact from the stage was repeated several times.



    The console is able to run games from Google Play, but Shield will also have its own app store. At the time the console starts selling, it will have 50 Android games in it, and by the end of the year this number will increase to a hundred. It is unlikely that the “birds” will be able to squeeze all the potential out of X1, so among the games there are desktop Portal, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Doom 3: BFG Edition, Resident Evil 5, The Talos Principle, Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance and Limb.

    Randbox Pitchford, head of Gearbox Software Studios, said Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is already porting to Shield. At nVidia, they are optimistic that in the future, many developers will port their games to the new console. Work is already underway to fully port CryEngine to Android.



    Another interesting fact of Shield is the support of the new streaming service nVidia GRID. Within its framework, a resource-intensive game can be launched in a powerful paid cloud, which will transfer the picture to the user's console. With sufficiently low delays, the game process will be comfortable. At a press conference they showed the launch of Witcher III in GRID on Shield, the cloud service also has Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Two payment methods are available: a subscription with free games (there are about 50 of them) or a purchase of a subscription for individual products.

    Thanks to Amazon AWS and optimizations, the lag was reduced to the minimum values ​​- only 150 ms. The picture quality can reach 1080p with 60 frames per second, but the basic picture is more blurry - 720p. In the first case, you need from 15 Mbit / s (50 are recommended), in the second, only 5 Mbit / s is enough (15 is recommended). The start of sales is scheduled for May this year. The cost of the console is 199 US dollars. The cost of subscription rates for GRID is still unknown. Based on materials from AnandTech , Engadget ( 1 , 2 , 3 ), The Verge ( 1 , 2 ), ArsTechnica and TechCrunch . More photos .






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