Get out from under your rocks, people, because this is happening. PC hardware maker Nvidia announced last night before CES 2013 that it will release a portable pure Android gaming system called Shield in Q2 of this year.
Why? We can't possibly imagine.
The Nvidia Shield will be powered by the new Tegra 4 processor and be capable of playing console-quality games (whatever that means at this point) on a screen in the palm of your hands. Keep in mind that Sony said that about the PS Vita, too, and we all know how that's turned out so far (we love our Vita, but so far its "console quality" games have been mostly lacking). That said, the Shield will reportedly be capable of outputting 4K resolution video to external displays via HDMI.
The Shield will feature advanced audio, five to ten hours of gameplay time or 24 hours of video playback, a 5-inch 720p multitouch display, and a microSD card slot.
It won't just play Android games, though—it will also be able to play PC games streamed over Wi-Fi from a Windows PC equipped with a GeForce GTX 650 or higher GPU. In the future Nvidia has promised to add wireless video output so you can play on a TV without the need for HDMI cables as well.
What do you think of the Nvidia Shield? Is it a great idea or doomed to fail?
