Shield, 4K Android console from nVidia for $ 199

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

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

The console has a good potential. It is able to reproduce content with a resolution of 4K at 60 frames per second on a TV with the corresponding characteristics via 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 capabilities. High performance is achieved thanks to the new mobile superchip X1, which was shown three months ago at the International Consumer Electronics Show .

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

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

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



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



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

The head of the studio Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford said that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is already being ported to Shield. In nVidia, they are optimistic that in the future many developers will port their games to a new console. We are already working on the full porting of CryEngine to Android.



Another interesting fact of Shield is the support for the new nVidia GRID streaming service. Within its framework, a resource-intensive game can be launched in a powerful paid cloud, which will transmit a picture to the user's prefix. With sufficiently low latency, the game process will be comfortable. At the press conference, the launch of Witcher III in GRID on Shield was shown, in the cloud service there are also 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 subscription to individual products.

Thanks to Amazon AWS and lag optimizations, we managed to reduce lag to minimal values ​​— just 150 ms. Image quality can reach 1080p with 60 frames per second, but the basic image is more blurry - 720p. In the first case, it is necessary from 15 Mbit / s (50 recommended), in the second only 5 Mbit / s is enough (15 recommended).



The start of sales is scheduled for May this year. The cost of the console - $ 199. The cost of subscription tariffs for GRID is still unknown.

Based on AnandTech , Engadget ( 1 , 2 , 3 ), The Verge ( 1 , 2 ), ArsTechnica and TechCrunch . More photos .