Nvidia moves into the handheld market.

[Kelthaz]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20931265

Well, I'm confused. I'm not sure what Nvidia is thinking releasing a dedicated gaming handheld when Nintendo (and Sony to a lesser degree) have such a monopoly on the market. No casual facebook-only gamer is going to buy this and no core gamer is going to pass up a 3DS or Vita in favour of this ... thing. I'd rather go with a Game Gear.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, that's an odd one. Even now, I think there's less and less a need for a dedicated handheld when tablets are becoming more and more viable for gaming. I've seen Vice City available for Android.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Everybody really wants their hands in the mobile pie these days. Good luck if they can pull it off, I guess.

 

[Kelthaz]

Yeah, that's an odd one. Even now, I think there's less and less a need for a dedicated handheld when tablets are becoming more and more viable for gaming. I've seen Vice City available for Android.

There'll always be a need for a dedicated handheld because touchscreen controls are abysmal for most games, but there is less of a need today. Nvidia seems to be trying to sell this thing on hardware alone, but they don't seem to understand that games sell system. What killer app do they have to compete with Pokemon?

 

[R. Star]

Yeah, that's an odd one. Even now, I think there's less and less a need for a dedicated handheld when tablets are becoming more and more viable for gaming. I've seen Vice City available for Android.

There'll always be a need for a dedicated handheld because touchscreen controls are abysmal for most games, but there is less of a need today. Nvidia seems to be trying to sell this thing on hardware alone, but they don't seem to understand that games sell system. What killer app do they have to compete with Pokemon?

I dunno, if you can hook that thing to a PC and DL and run material, that pretty much widens the market to anything in theory gaming wise. It might be interesting to see how that would work out.

 

[Kelthaz]

Most of the PC games that I play require a mouse and a keyboard. I can't exactly play StarCraft II or World of Warcraft on this thing.

 

[R. Star]

Most of the PC games that I play require a mouse and a keyboard. I can't exactly play StarCraft II or World of Warcraft on this thing.

Sounds like you've already made up your mind then... or were you trying to persuade me to your line of thinking?

 

[Kelthaz]

What would you stream on it?

 

[Yoda]

The obvious things to stream would be pretty much anything compatible with Steam's new Big Picture Mode. Given how much cheaper you can get the same games on PC that are on console, and how much better they can look, it's not an idea completely without merit. I wouldn't mind hooking up my PC Arkham City or whatever through this thing and and HDMI cable in my living room.

 

[Reverend]

What would you stream on it?

I actually have a bunch of controller appropriate games on my Steam account that I could see working with this. Deus Ex, Batman Arkham Asylum/City, just about all the GTA games, Beyond Good and Evil, The Walking Dead, Fable, Skyrim, Bastion, Space Marine, Super Meat Boy, Assassin's Creed II, Psychonaughts, Saints Row 2, Ghostbusters TVG, Dreamfall and the three Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games. I could probably manage with some of my FPS titles like HL2, Portal/L4D 1&2, as well as the earlier Telltale games, but it wouldn't be ideal. Not sure about the Bioware RPGs since everything post Jade Empire appears to have been ported to one console or another, so I assume it's just a matter of fiddling with settings to get the controller options turned on.

You're right though, it won't be suited for the likes of RTS games or MMOs, but then you're not likely to be playing them on the move anyway, so since those make up a relatively small percentage of PC games as a whole, it's a bit of a minor issue as far as I can see.

 

[Kelthaz]

I actually have a bunch of controller appropriate games on my Steam account that I could see working with this. Deus Ex, Batman Arkham Asylum/City, just about all the GTA games, Beyond Good and Evil, The Walking Dead, Fable, Skyrim, Bastion, Space Marine, Super Meat Boy, Assassin's Creed II, Psychonaughts, Saints Row 2, Ghostbusters TVG, Dreamfall and the three Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games.

But if you're home anyway why would you choose to play those games on your tiny Project Shield rather than your desktop or HDTV? There's just so many better options.

1.) Play those games on a PS3, 360, or Wii U connected to your HDTV.
2.) Play those games on your desktop.
3.) Use an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your TV and play with a wireless mouse & keyboard on the couch.
4.) Buy a laptop instead of a Project Shield and play those games on your couch.
5.) Buy a Vita/3DS and get access to exclusive portable games that you don't own rather than making games that you can already play portable.

If this thing was $99 I could see maybe buying it (mostly for the inevitable console emulation), but there's no way that Project Shield is going to be cheap. The tech is too advanced and Nvidia can't sell the system for a loss like Nintendo has always done.

 

[Jim Steele]

This is just one of a shitload of pint sized Android based games consoles coming out this year. And I bet it's the most expensive. Can't see it being any more than a rich nerd's curiosity before dying horribly.

 

[Reverend]

I actually have a bunch of controller appropriate games on my Steam account that I could see working with this. Deus Ex, Batman Arkham Asylum/City, just about all the GTA games, Beyond Good and Evil, The Walking Dead, Fable, Skyrim, Bastion, Space Marine, Super Meat Boy, Assassin's Creed II, Psychonaughts, Saints Row 2, Ghostbusters TVG, Dreamfall and the three Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games.

But if you're home anyway why would you choose to play those games on your tiny Project Shield rather than your desktop or HDTV? There's just so many better options.

1.) Play those games on a PS3, 360, or Wii U connected to your HDTV.
2.) Play those games on your desktop.
3.) Use an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your TV and play with a wireless mouse & keyboard on the couch.
4.) Buy a laptop instead of a Project Shield and play those games on your couch.
5.) Buy a Vita/3DS and get access to exclusive portable games that you don't own rather than making games that you can already play portable.

If this thing was $99 I could see maybe buying it (mostly for the inevitable console emulation), but there's no way that Project Shield is going to be cheap. The tech is too advanced and Nvidia can't sell the system for a loss like Nintendo has always done.

Hey I wasn't arguing that I thought it was a good idea, just that it potentially had quite a large existing library of games it could possibly tap into. A major advantage for a handheld as most up till now have depended on proprietary formats.

I don't think for a minute that it'll take off in any way to really challenge the other major players, but they've certainly found a niche that I'm surprised nobody else has tried to fill yet.

As you say though, the key to it's success or failure will be the cost of the thing. To have any hope of gaining a foothold it'd need to be cheep and easy to use.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I actually have a bunch of controller appropriate games on my Steam account that I could see working with this. Deus Ex, Batman Arkham Asylum/City, just about all the GTA games, Beyond Good and Evil, The Walking Dead, Fable, Skyrim, Bastion, Space Marine, Super Meat Boy, Assassin's Creed II, Psychonaughts, Saints Row 2, Ghostbusters TVG, Dreamfall and the three Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games.

But if you're home anyway why would you choose to play those games on your tiny Project Shield rather than your desktop or HDTV? There's just so many better options.

1.) Play those games on a PS3, 360, or Wii U connected to your HDTV.
2.) Play those games on your desktop.
3.) Use an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your TV and play with a wireless mouse & keyboard on the couch.
4.) Buy a laptop instead of a Project Shield and play those games on your couch.
5.) Buy a Vita/3DS and get access to exclusive portable games that you don't own rather than making games that you can already play portable.

If this thing was $99 I could see maybe buying it (mostly for the inevitable console emulation), but there's no way that Project Shield is going to be cheap. The tech is too advanced and Nvidia can't sell the system for a loss like Nintendo has always done.

Maybe I don't want to sit at the computer, or have a notebook in my lap. Maybe I just want a handheld console, but I want to play something that's normally only on my PC.

I see this as being similar to the Wii U tablet, on which you can play Wii U games without using your TV. A lot of games support controllers nowadays, and so do plenty of Steam games.

The price is going to be the real sticking point, since it sounds like it will be both a portable gaming device and a Wii U-like controller with built-in display. If it was only the latter, I suspect they could do it relatively cheaply.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Steam Box lol.

 

[tomswift2002]

What Nvidia really needed to do was bring out a hand-held where they had licensed the technology from Nintendo, Sega, Sony or Microsoft that would allow people to play their old cartridge-based games (Nintendo and Sega) or their early CD/DVD-Rom games (Sony and Microsoft), kind of like what Sega themselves did 20 years ago with the handheld system that let people play their Genesis cartridges on a hand-held machine.

That type of system would've probably been a better idea.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

What Nvidia really needed to do was bring out a hand-held where they had licensed the technology from Nintendo, Sega, Sony or Microsoft that would allow people to play their old cartridge-based games (Nintendo and Sega) or their early CD/DVD-Rom games (Sony and Microsoft), kind of like what Sega themselves did 20 years ago with the handheld system that let people play their Genesis cartridges on a hand-held machine.

That type of system would've probably been a better idea.

Nintendo and Sega are both selling their old games in the Nintendo eShop, so I doubt they would be down with something like that.

 

[CorporalClegg]

What Nvidia needs to do is focus on making better GPUs.

They've been slipping these past few years.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

What Nvidia needs to do is focus on making better GPUs.

They've been slipping these past few years.

Who is really doing any better?

There's not much reason to keep pushing the envelope on graphics hardware when virtually everything is console-bound.

 

[Kelthaz]

Maybe I don't want to sit at the computer, or have a notebook in my lap. Maybe I just want a handheld console, but I want to play something that's normally only on my PC.

But would you really spend at least $199 (there's no way it'll be cheaper than this) for a device that plays games that you're already capable of playing? You could buy a 3DS or Vita instead and get access to games you don't already have and you can even play them outside your home. The Wii U streaming is a good feature because it's a secondary feature that complements the system. No would would ever buy a Wii U just for the streaming capabilities of the Game Pad. If this Project Shield came for free with one of Nvidia's graphics cards it'd be a pretty sweet extra, but as a standalone device I can't see anyone buying this outside of hardcore PC gamers with plenty of disposable income.