Nvidia's Project Shield - 'Android & Tegra 4 inside'


Xperia Play died young, because Sony didn't really support it, as much as they should have...also, because of bad marketing, or lack thereof.
they had that superbowl ad, and there was lots and lots of buzz about it on the net, I felt their actual marketing was pretty good on getting the word out there. My sister who is more of a "mainstream gamer" and not a techie, even asked me my opinions on it without me telling her about it beforehand.

But here was the nail in the coffin on the play I think (my theory at least) Their game support was just absolutely horrid. None of sony's first party titles ever came over like they said they were going to. Then they scrapped ericson (possibly due to poor xperia play sales) Their sony ps1 titles on android where splintered every which way depending on country (europe got the majority of the good ones), and the first party game selection was just god aweful as well. They never finished support for the PSN which would have been a mind blowingly killer feature. I can go on and on about their lack of support in areas they could have literally revolutionized the market.

OS wise they did a bad job there as well. Gingerbread ran awesome, and with love their ICS build was really decent as well if they would have ever finished it. They officially said the hardware couldn't be supported even though they themselves proved it could, but they had already given up hope on their own product at that point and started pushing newer spec'd devices out the door and left that one to die.

I think the Shield will have a niche, if not just because of its PC Game streaming ability which seems to get talked about way more than its Android gaming capability by gamers. Will it be successful, well as long as its not canned, it's a success in my book , no matter what numbers it sells in.  

The important thing for you is not whether it succeeds or fails , but since it uses plain Android, it's whether Android (controller) gaming takes off - and personally I think we are only at the beginning of that.  Just look at whats starting to come in that area with Mad Catz MOJO etc.   At some point Google (and even Apple) are going to start getting serious about it also.
I've looked into it a bunch and the PC streaming is not the walled garden as it's maybe being presenting it to be. Saw an interview with someone who actually knows what he's talking about. Games like warcraft and old PC titles (not steam) are useable if you configure the game yourself and have the correct input on the device (720p + bluetooth keyboard/mouse + shield) They do have to be manually "hooked" into the geforce experience app via a script or whatever though. So no fear there, the beta tag and official support is really only for the seamless compatibility with steam from what I'm gathering.

If the sheild crashes and burns that will definitely be the saving grace from all this, standardization. It doesn't really help the fact that similar sized projects may not happen agian for a while afterwords, But if they do, they will at least have app support hopefully.

So far NVIDIA is doing everything right in my opinion from a non splintered market perspective. They are even reversing their previous stance on locking down tegra enhanced games to tegra hardware. They have and are encouring a use of an API system for their device IDs. Games should be universally compatible for the most part but will have flags in the apps that turn on graphic qualities depending on the chipset you have. Dead Trigger 2 will be available on qualcom, TI, and samsung chipsets with different levels of graphics turned on/off depending on settings and capabilities. They can't speak for their competitors, but it sounds like a good system to build for instead of haveing to build and maintain 10 different versions of the same game if you are using device specific code.

I've read they are further fixing the adoption/splintering of hardware controller problem with their own line of "made for tegra" controller branding that are sold to hardware OEM's controllers all share the same keycodes. I don't know how that's going to effect the current gen of controllers (moga, icp etc etc) but it looks like the branding might be the "thing to have" in the future.

Something that might help the industry a bit for higher quality games, and app developers supporting multiple platforms outside the shield. Nvidia is licensing out their Tegra+geforce chipset like ARM does with their CPU. Kinda cool thing to think about if android gaming gets recognized with tegra in general. Even if nvidia isn't directly making the chips, future gaming devices can take advantage of that license and make their own hardware in house. App developers can optimize for that one type of chipset and hit a wide variety of hardware. (I'm not an app developer, but I have heard that is starting to become a problem more than it was in the past)
 
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In regards to the Xperia Play - You guys raise good points of why it wasn't successful.  The personal reason it didn't click for me  though was this:

I was waiting for a smartphone with slide out real controls

The Play portrayed itself as a smartphone with real controls instead of touch

They launched a Smartphone with slide out touch controls.

Like the Vicar said to the Nun -  "Come again"
 
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In regards to the Xperia Play - You guys raise good points of why it wasn't successful.  The personal reason it didn't click for me  though was this:

I was waiting for a smartphone with slide out real controls

The Play portrayed itself as a smartphone with real controls instead of touch

They launched a Smartphone with slide out touch controls.

Like the Vicar said to the Nun -  "Come again"
lol, yea that was a hard one to look around.

And sometimes even harder to use... it almost had it "right" though... so close
 
Depending on how well the app kaizy works the game streaming might be coming to all android devices. I know I'm either going to buy a shield or a razer edge. Can't decide yet.
 
What kind of douche makes an unboxing video private?!?

Anyway, was about to order one of these but then I thought why not put that $299 towards a really nice phone, say the Galaxy S4, and then get a gameklip?  I think they should have made this a little cheaper and aimed it at kids, basically anyone that for some reason doesn't have a good cell phone.
 
Ehh, I still don't know, I'll wait it out and see what it is really like.  Still don't see the advantage of this over putting that money towards a really good phone and a gameklip.  If it is the tegra 4 you want I'm sure phones with it will be out soon and if it is the streaming Steam games ALL tegra 4 chips should have that ability from what I understand.  I think it is just a gimic though, you can stream games over your network no matter what hardware you have.
 
If there was a phone that came with a game clip. That automatically configured itself I could see that being better. But I've tried the s3 + I control pad bit that solution was far too cumbersome to pull out of your pocket for a few minutes gaming on th e subway.
 
I saw someone using NFC to launch apps when in proximity to a peripheral. If there was a gameclip with NFC, so that when you connected the clip to the phone it was automatically paired up and launched your game launcher app of choice (ie tegra zone) That would be a a truly elegant alternative to the shield. As it stands now, I think I'm going to be getting a shield ASAP. It's kind of sad that it seems I might be throwing over my GCW zero before I've even received it for the shield.
 
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OS wise they did a bad job there as well. Gingerbread ran awesome, and with love their ICS build was really decent as well if they would have ever finished it. They officially said the hardware couldn't be supported even though they themselves proved it could, but they had already given up hope on their own product at that point and started pushing newer spec'd devices out the door and left that one to die.
Sony is known to give up on updating OS on their phones. I own a Xperia S (not long ago it was the "flagship" of the new sony phones) we, owners, had to keep nagging them to get an official 4.1.2 Jellybeans update. They also used the excuse "we can't make jellybeans runs great enough to ensure a satisfactory user experience"…
 
If there was a phone that came with a game clip. That automatically configured itself I could see that being better. But I've tried the s3 + I control pad bit that solution was far too cumbersome to pull out of your pocket for a few minutes gaming on th e subway.
I guess so, but this thing is pretty big, larger than a gameklip+gamepad, so space wise it isn't any better than that solution.  You'll pretty much need a bag to carry either of them around.  I'm still waiting until it has been out for a while before I decide though.  I'm keeping my mind open but right now leaning towards putting the money towards a really nice phone.
 
It's delayed :

Dear Jonathan,
We know you’ve been looking forward to receiving your NVIDIA® SHIELD™. And we’re eager to get it into your hands.

But we won’t do that until it’s fully up to the exacting standards that NVIDIA’s known for. And some final quality-assurance testing has just turned up a mechanical issue that we’re not happy with.

So, while we announced last week that SHIELD will ship this Thursday, we’ve taken the hard decision to delay shipping until next month.

The issue relates to a third-party mechanical component, and we’re working around the clock with the supplier to get it up to our expectations.

We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience. But we want every SHIELD to be just right.

We’ll let you know when we have an exact shipping date in July. We think it will be worth the wait.

NVIDIA Customer Care
 
If there was a phone that came with a game clip. That automatically configured itself I could see that being better. But I've tried the s3 + I control pad bit that solution was far too cumbersome to pull out of your pocket for a few minutes gaming on th e subway.
I guess so, but this thing is pretty big, larger than a gameklip+gamepad, so space wise it isn't any better than that solution.  You'll pretty much need a bag to carry either of them around.  I'm still waiting until it has been out for a while before I decide though.  I'm keeping my mind open but right now leaning towards putting the money towards a really nice phone.
I guess I'm coming from a rare position as a consumer. I already always carry a bag with either my 3ds or vita in it. Neither of those are really pocketable for me, so the Shield is just another choice to add to the mix, a choice that will get a lot more play than both systems I own already. Ever since using an iCP on my s3 I decided not to game on my phone, too much setup, its just not convenient. Having one device for phone activities and one for gaming just works. I wonder how much a tegra 4 phone + gamepad would cost anyway. I can get a nexus 4 and shield for 609 total, more powerful and cost less than my current phone.
 
Hmm, I wonder how much this is going to cost them.  They would have had all the units built , boxed and ready for sale. Now they have to fix them . That's going to cost big time.
 
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