Nvidia Shield | Hacker News Reader

Nvidia Shield

store.nvidia.com

58 pointstwodayslate45 comments

1. This cost Nvidia $10 million to develop and essentially promote the Tegra 4. If it convinces other companies to back Tegra 4, it was probably worth the investment. If it completely flops, it's not exactly something that will sink the company.

2. From following the thread on NeoGAF about the Shield, it seems like this is targeted more towards hardcore gamers who want to stream PC games so they don't have to be at a desktop all the time and to also have a relatively powerful emulation machine.

This is an a very strange launch and I'm not entirely sure who the target market is.

Serious gamers -- I doubt they'd be happy with Android games. Kids -- no killer marketing/mascots. Casual gamers -- likely wouldn't care enough, their phone is good enough.

However, if this gained an install base, I'd assume it would drive the nearly non-existance premium purchase market on android games up.

+1... Android Games are generally free. There is no mention of how this works with your TV, so how will it compete against Ouya? I can get all this in a tablet + game controller.

You can plug it into a TV with an HDMI cable.

It apparently makes a surprisingly good emulator.

For starters it doesn't come with a mid-range 2012 chip (Tegra 3), but one that is high-end and competitive this year (Tegra 4), with the exception of the lack of OpenGL ES 3.0 support.

#2 It doesn't have a horrible controller like OUYA, but actually a pretty good one.

#3 It's portable since it has a screen.

As for the game controller+tablet, first you'd need a Tegra 4 tablet to match its performance, which costs $500 or so, which may be worth it since it's a tablet, and you're getting more out of it, but you won't be getting to play Steam games on your TV with it.

So I guess it depends how much of a Steam player you are, too.

The real killer (or at least differentiating) feature is that you can stream PC games from your desktop to the shield. Apparently it works pretty well[1].

[1] - http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4573596/nvidia-shield-revi...

That's cool and all, but so extremely niche I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Is that Tegra 4 only that requires some kind of special hardware? Or any android device with some kind of software could do this?

Onlive does this on pretty much any device, here is their Android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onlive.cli...

Well, except that it only plays games on the OnLive service, not any PC game with controller support.

The point is nothing magical is happening in the Tegra 4 to enable this use case, this feature can be replicated with pretty much any device.

Neither of you understands what's going on here. It has nothing to do with Tegra 4 in regards to streaming. It has to do with Nvidia's PC GPU's and their streaming software. That's why it wouldn't work with AMD's chips - because you need Nvidia's software that's only available for Nvidia's GPU's.

I don't buy it, just look into Nvidia and Physx, AMD chips are just as capable is not more so.

I think it only works if you have an Nvidia video card. I don't have one =/ I'd also rather spend $300 on a video card.

Gamers don't fall into perfect categories of "Serious" or "Casual". There's a big market out there, and cell phone interfaces are fundamentally inadequate for at-par console equivalence.

As a 'serious' gamer who also loves casual gaming, I want one of these.

I hate playing casual games on my phone. The lack of physical buttons constantly shits me. I've tried all the various clip-on controllers and have used wireless controllers tethered to the phone, it's just not right.

I absolutely love my PS Vita, but wish it had better apps when I'm travelling, so something like the Shield, which has games for when i'm stuck on a plane or waiting for a bus/train, but also has full Android apps for when i'm travelling, is awesome.

The fact it can run Android emulators with physical buttons is also a bonus.

I'm I the only one who read the headline and thought it was some awesome addon for Arduinos?

No, I was so disappointed. I had images of some sort of fantastic mini-GPU shield.

me too .dang

Got me too.

I'm going to buy one as a portable emulation machine...when it doesn't sell well and drops in price a hundred dollars.

I got one, and so far love it. The pc streaming feature is fantastic not to mention the ability to have all my favorite old console games emulated on the go.

(disclosure: I work at NVIDIA, but not directly on Shield.)

One of the things that I find most exciting about Shield is that it's a platform designed for innovation. Build blobs, a manifest.xml, and recovery images were released on day 3 (they would have been released on day 1, but for an Akamaization mistake). [1]

I'm not sure whether it will take off in the hands of developers, but the step of reaching out as soon as we could makes me proud. I certainly hope that people will come and develop on our platform, but more than anything else, I hope that this will make it closer to "the norm" for SoC vendors to provide support packages for their platforms.

[1] https://developer.nvidia.com/develop4shield#OSR ... or if you prefer the PR-speak, http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/08/07/hack-your-shield/

The reveal of the shield was months ago, and since then it's still unknown by many within the industry (including pro gamers) how this will end up.

While it definitely targets the more serious gamers with capabilities like PC streaming, etc., this is really Nvidia dipping its toes in the retail arena, starting with mobile.

A leader in portable real gaming has yet to emerge, and until recently it's been a showdown between PS Vita & the 3DS line. Mobile game development has really started to mature and and so has mobile hardware (tablets/phones/etc.) and seriously cut into the value proposition for portable game systems.

Unfortunately, the control experience hasn't kept up and this is a serious gap that may present opportunity.

Nvidia already has a platform (Tegra) that performs extremely well with respect to gaming, and by selecting Android has access to a potential existing library of games that could be easily ported over to seed their ecosystem.

As someone else mentioned, the dynamics of gamers are extremely diverse. Serious FPS players may only play PC, but also 'moonlight' as casual sports gamers on console. And all gamers have the same basic needs when it comes to portable gaming that at present is only available from Nintendo & Sony.

Bottom line, many gamers suspect that Nvidia may attempt to produce their own hardware console in the future, and this could be the precursor. It is a bit 'something for everybody' so it's hard to say whether that will be compelling enough for anybody. Most of the gamers I interact with say that they'll wait for v2.

> A leader in portable real gaming has yet to emerge

Real gaming? The games on Android and iOS are real video games. As far as I'm concerned those two platforms are the leaders in mobile gaming.

Nvidia demoed this at their keynote in CES this year, it looks very promising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOHNmzz1gYo

Edit: This video is a much better closeup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf_3huHlfZM

It would be cool if it was a portable Steam console.

You can stream Steam games from the PC on the Shield (AFAIK).

What, through VNC? That doesn't seem like it would be a very enjoyable experience.

Shield's PC game streaming works by using the hardware H.264 encoder in Nvidia GTX 650 (or higher) graphics cards. They recommend a reasonably fast PC and a fast wireless network.

Does it support an ATI card in the PC?

No, you need an Nvidia card above a GTX 650 because those cards have the built in H.264 encoder necessary to stream the games.

no. it's nvidia only.

I wish they would sell the streaming part without the screen. The price is prohibitive and the standalone games seem lame, but I have a nice HDTV in the living room and an ATI GPU that could be replaced.

That's basically what it is. The streaming is pretty much second to none and designed to work exclusively with Steam.

People are welcome to second guess and deride this all they want. I can play Fallout: New Vegas from my bed on a portable console and that's all I've ever wanted.

Mine should be here on Friday. I am without a desktop for the summer, but I'll be playing emulators on it until then. Glad to hear the streaming works well!

While the number of games in the Google Play store with controller support isn't extensive, the ones that work, do so very well. I'm playing GTA 3 on it right now and it runs beautifully. Emulators run very well and are key for me as well but don't discount native Android titles either.

The marketing here is awfully deceptive unless you know what you're reading (you know, parents and stuff):

"Custom 72-core NVIDIA GeForce® GPU Quad-core ARM® A15 CPU."

Rarely do you hear cores related to the GPU and not the CPU. "72 core? This thing must be amazing! [click]" Furthermore, how often do you see the GPU mentioned prior to the CPU? Not very, but I guess that's what happens when you're NVIDIA.

Edit: "5-inch 720p retinal quality multi-touch display for high-fidelity visuals."

Retinal display. Made me giggle. Just because they're pitching it with the latest buzzword. Yeah, it's 294ppi at 12", blah blah blah, but still. Retinal display?

Retina Display is actually a trademark. Never seen anyone hint at it so explicitly - not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Maybe next year they can increase the screen to 6" or even 7" by cutting down on those big bezels, and maybe making the top cover a bit bigger.

The resolution can stay the same, since for that kind of screen it should be enough for now, and as a gamer you'd rather take advantage of the extra graphics. I'm also more interested in the mobile Kepler GPU that they should have next year. If they could drop the price down to at least $250 that would be better ($200 would be the sweet spot in a world where people are barely interested in consoles anymore, but I know that won't be possible even next year).

My initial thoughts were "meh" but after getting into some details and reading some reviews this device seems to be really well made and has alot going for it. The PC Streaming feature looks awesome and if there is one thing that frustrates me about serious mobile gaming, its controls which is a non issue here. Instead of a PS Vita or some other gaming handheld, i would definately get this!

http://store.nvidia.com/buyshield?cid=sp-gfnewsletter

Is that an affiliate link?

No. The link is from the official newsletter.

The future of mobile gaming is IOS. Ports of KOTOR and XCOM have shown its potential.

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