Nvidia held their big press event at GDC 2015 and the company had been hinting at a big announcement, stating it was five years in the making. Everyone had their guesses as to what this would be, with a lot of people pointing to VR as being the announcement. We actually guessed it would be a console in a previous article. When the event began, the CEO of Nvidia Jen-Hsun Huang, came out and told everyone right away that he had three things to announce: a new revolutionary TV, a new super computer, and a new console. Turns out, it wasn’t three devices, it was just one.
So everyone who guessed a new console was sort of right but the Nvidia Shield is a lot more than that. The obvious question is, why call it the Shield? Well that we don’t know. Perhaps it is because what was once called the Nvidia Shield is now called Shield Portable. We also have the Shield tablet. So with this, it is simply the Shield. The first thing you notice is the design. It is very slick looking and incredibly thin and can be placed flat or upright in a stand. All of your ports are on the back. These include a Gigabit Ethernet port, 2 USB 3.0 ports to use with things like external hard drives, HDMI, MicroSD slot and so on. There is also the highest performing WiFi hardware in there as well for use with Nvidia’s GRID and other services. More on that later though.
Nvidia’s Shield claims a few ‘first’ titles. It is the world’s first Android TV console. It is also the world’s first 4K Android TV device and it isn’t just because it can play movies, videos, and games in 4K resolution. It can send, receive, and display 4K at 60 hertz. This is both for playing anything locally stored as well as streamed to the device. For getting content, Google Play will be available on it but there will also be a new storefront for Shield specific content, appropriately named the Shield Store. Since the Shield sports Bluetooth as well, it can sync to all your Android devices.
For media playback, whether it be movies, video, or music, there is the Shield Remote. This is a rather minimalistic designed remote that uses Bluetooth as well. Nvidia has done some interesting things with this remote though as it also contains a Bluetooth receiver. Users can plug a headset into the remote and that will allow the sound from whatever you’re doing with the Shield to be streamed to the remote and played through the headset for privacy. There is also a mic located at the bottom of the remote. Keeping it charged is done through connecting the remote via USB.
For gaming, the Shield comes with the recently announced Tegra X1 chipset. This was announced during CES 2015 and while Nvidia focused almost 100% of their CES time to automotive uses, GDC 2015 is showcasing the chipset’s gaming functionality. In terms of RAM, there will be 3GB of RAM inside as well as 16GB of storage. There is also a new controller for this particular Shield device. It is pretty much like the current Shield tablet controller but with a slightly toned down design to it.
Here is the full specs:
– NVIDIA Tegra X1 processor with 256-core Maxwell GPU with 3GB RAM
– 4K Ultra-HD Ready with 4K playback and capture up to 60 fps (VP9, H265, H264)
– 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound pass through over HDMI
– High-resolution audio playback up to 24-bit/192kHz over HDMI and USB
– High-resolution audio upsample to 24-bit/192hHz over USB
– 16GB storage
– 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi
– Bluetooth 4.1/BLE
– Gigabit Ethernet
– HDMI 2.0
– Two USB 3.0 (Type A)2
– Micro-USB 2.0
– MicroSD slot (supports 128GB cards)
– NVIDIA GRID streaming service
– NVIDIA GameStream™
– Weight: 23oz / 654g, Height: 5.1in / 130mm, Width: 8.3in / 210mm, Depth: 1.0in / 25mm
When Nvidia displayed the Shield Store, there were some very interesting titles up there that have not been announced for Android. However, they are coming to Android but will, at least for now, be available only for this Shield Android TV console. This includes the feature-complete full version of the upcoming FPS-style Borderlands game called Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. There is also the complete full version of The Talos Principle that will be available.
Other games include Crysis 3 Multiplayer running at full detail at 30FPS, Doom 3 BFG Edition (Doom1, Doom 2, All versions of Doom 3), Resident Evil 5, Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance and Limbo. However, the Shield Store won’t just have these games at launch. Nvidia states it will have over 50 titles available in the Shield Store for when the Shield hits store shelves.
This is all stuff we have come to expect from Nvidia announcements at GDC press events. It is always some seriously good gaming for Android. However, the big surprise to come out of this is the price that the Shield console will be. Hitting stores in May 2015, the Nvidia Shield will be priced at $199 bundled with the controller! That is a pretty stellar price tag. The remote will be sold separately and unfortunately Nvidia did not announce a price on that yet.
Nvidia also spent a good part of the second half of the event talking about GRID. We figured there would be a GRID announcement and, in fact, we guessed it would be a GRID console that would be announced and we were sort of right. Nvidia went into detail about GRID and the reason for that is because GRID is now an official gaming on-demand service. Up until now it has been in testing on Shield devices but now it is totally official.
There will be two packages available. First, there will be a free package which will run games at 720p and there will be plenty of games available for free. There will also be a premium package which will stream games to your device, such as the new Shield console, at 1080p 60FPS. Both packages will be able to load up a game and begin streaming it to you and you can start playing in under a minute. The premium package will also feature new games coming out that are being released on other platforms. So if you know of a big Triple-A release coming to PC next month, as an example, it will also be released onto GRID and premium members will be able to play this game right when it launches.
Both the free and premium packages for GRID will be made available in May, same time Nvidia’s Shield console hit’s stores. Of course in true Nvidia fashion, there were plenty of games previewed and there are a lot of big titles on there already such as Alan Wake, Resident Evil 5, Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Ultra Street Fighter VI, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zero, and a whole lot more. You will also be able to buy any of the games outright if you want to do that instead of paying for a subscription.
Obviously we have some questions we want to ask Nvidia about the new Shield console and GRID announcement. One question we have regarding GRID is about the bandwidth usage and how much is being used to stream 1080p games. People with caps on their bandwidth will obviously be concerned about this. Also is there a feature coming soon about transferring saved games in GRID to the PC version if you end up buying it on Steam for example. This is all cloud-based after all. How much is the premium package.
If you have any questions about any of this, let us know in the comments below. We will be talking to Nvidia tonight as well as tomorrow.
