Nvidia announced another addition to the Shield lineup last night, debuting an Android-based device capable of 4k playback and capture. The device is intended to be used in the living room, and Nvidia cited a number of reasons for using the Android OS.
“First, it’s based on the most popular OS in the world. Second, the richness of the Google Play store, with it huge range of applications,” Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said. “Third, it syncs with all my other devices. Finally, it has an incredible voice search capability.”
He then went on to demonstrate video playback, voice capture and a variety of other features. The unit will featuure a very simple remote that can also act as a bluetooth reciever, as well as having touch sensitive volume controls. Android TV functionality is baked in, and users will be able to access a library of TV, movies and more.
Of course, Nvidia is primarily a gaming company, and games were well represented during the presentation. Current games being ported over include Portal, Crysis 3, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Rising: Revengence, The Talos Principle and more. A common theme of the gaming side of the presentation was the ease of getting these games up and running on the system with little difficulty and no loss of features.
The box will pack a Tegra X1 processor with a 256-bit Maxwell GPU and 3GB of memory. On the external side, it has a MicroSD slot, Micro USB 2.0 port, gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI port and two USB Type-A 3.0 ports. Its an impressive bit of kit, and Nvidia is promising that it will ship bundled with the Shield Controller for $199 (USD)
