Last night at CES 2013, NVIDIA threw its hat in the mobile console ring, having announced its portable console code-named "Project Shield." The handheld runs on Android Jelly Bean and can play games from the Android Marketplace, as well as from Steam via PC. Check out the interesting design in the slideshow above and a video of the device's demo below.
Project Shield will be powered by the world's first quad-core A15 mobile processor, NVIDIA's Tegra 4, which sports a 72-core GeForce GPU- one powerful little speed-demon. The handheld is essentially what looks like a longer version of the Xbox controller attached to a 5" multi-touch display, which displays 720p resolution. It will also support Wi-Fi, and has an HDMI input and Micro SD card slot.
No games have been confirmed for Project Shield just yet, but big honchos like Epic Games have expressed their support for the console:
“With Project Shield, Nvidia brings an uncompromising, high-performance console experience to mobile devices," noted Mark Rein, co-founder of Epic Games. "Amazing games including Real Boxing and Hawken, which utilize the latest Unreal Engine technology, look fantastic on Project Shield. This is just the beginning, and we’re truly excited to see what more Unreal Engine developers will do with so much horsepower in such a compact gaming device.”
NVIDIA claims that the little device will be able to provide up to 5-10 hours of gameplay on one charge, and that it can access Hulu and Netflix and stream games on the PC. Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot also commented on Project Shield, saying that seeing Assassin's Creed III for the PC run on it shows great promise for the mobile platform. “Ubisoft is always excited about new hardware developments, and Project Shield promises to bring both mobile and PC gamers a great new gaming experience."
NVIDIA has not announced a price point or release date for Project Shield.
Source: NVIDIA, Silicon Era
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