NVIDIA's Project SHIELD caused a number of raised eyebrows when it was first announced at CES 2013 on January 7, 2013. Since then, NVIDIA has launched a series of videos to explain, showcase, and - hopefully - sell Project SHIELD to consumers.
SHIELD is initially described as a handheld, portable game console, but there's a lot more to it than that. A new handheld alone would have a difficult time competing against Nintendo's DS platform. SHIELD breaks out of the mold in one key aspect, which I view as its primary purpose: it can stream gameplay running on a PC.
SHIELD gives the player a portable, 5-inch display and controller for their PC games. Check out this live gameplay video to see what NVIDIA is aiming for. It's quite impressive that SHIELD manages to maintain a quality framerate. I wonder how much bandwidth it consumes, and what its tolerance for network latency might be. I strongly suspect it will only work well over private, local, uncluttered wi-fi networks. Still, it's pretty impressive technology.
But would it be fun to play a PC game like that? I don't think so. I can't imagine wanting to play on a 5-inch screen when I have a nice, 24-inch 1080p display with wonderful Bose speakers hooked up to my PC. The controller might be nice at times, though it looks a bit cramped, however there are always times I want to play on my PC for the sole purpose of having keyboard and mouse controls. Now, make a SHIELD set-top box hooked up to my TV and we'll get serious.
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