Image courtesy blogs.nvidia.com.

The NVIDIA SHIELD is NVIDIA’s entry into the game console market. I had forgot about this, but the launch details were just announced yesterday. SHIELD is an Android console running Jelly Bean on a Tegra 4 chip. It looks a lot like a 360 controller with a flip up screen. It looks bulky and ugly, but I think it could be interesting. It’s most interesting feature is likely its ability, launching as a beta feature, to stream select Steam games from a PC using a GeForce GTX desktop GPU. Sadly, it’s 650 or higher, which mine is not. Presumably, streaming only works locally. It’s an interesting feature, but would I use it? I think I’d rather play my PC games on my PC unless I could actually stream it over the Internet.

Image courtesy of ChucksChallenge.com.

Chuck’s Challenge has been optimized for the SHIELD as well. It’s developed by Niffler with creator Chuck Sommerville. He’s the amazing talent behind Chip’s Challenge and of course the Chuck’s Challenge for iOS. I backed the 3D port of Chuck’s Challenge on Kickstarter, and from the beta, I can say that it’s very cool.

There are also two Double Fine games being optimized for the SHIELD. There will likely be more announcements in the future as well.

Sources: 5 Cutting-Edge Games That Will Rock NVIDIA SHIELD, Jordan Dodge, NVIDIA Blog, 5/14/13 and Portable Handheld Android Gaming | NVIDIA SHIELD via Chuck Sommerville.