NVIDIA Unveils $199 Gaming Console at GDC 2015

GamersNexus: "At the Game Developers Conference 2015 in San Francisco today, GPU manufacturer NVIDIA unveiled that it would be launching a series of new devices in the immediate future. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang didn't waste time in teasing the company's future direction, including promises of a retargeted living room gaming focus. Part of that focus will include an NVIDIA-made game console, smart TV, and supercomputer."

[PoSTedUP]

woahhh, you guys see that!? man, i cant wait to get my hands on it! this gen is getting Real: Real fast!!

[HammadTheBeast]

Just another flop android console from what I see. I don't understand why these massive graphics companies can't shift away from android based systems. Whoever they're targeting won't be buying full priced games, and if they offer cheap ones, why pay $200 when your phone has them?

[PoSTedUP]

wait... isnt it a 4k NVIDIA Shield with twice the power as the 360 running crysis3 on a portable device? bc thats what i read.

oh wait... "not to be confused with the handheld device.."

i got a different article mixed up that had an actual picture of the Nshield and these specs... my bad.

[mikeslemonade]

Lame.. I hope it fails.

[SolidStoner]

you crazy people... why hope for a fail?

that has no sense, even if you want to stay with your current console or PC, you can freely do so, also more competition might actually improve your current console!

we gamers have to stop to be a fanboys! of any kind!

If some company is entering new business areas YOU have to wish them luck, because they might actually make something good for us consumers! It will not hurt you if you do not invest into it!

[HammadTheBeast]

I don't hope that it fails, but I don't see it succeeding either. There's nothing for me to wish them luck on because this is the third or fourth time we've seen this (not to mention dozens of knock-offs) and it's been well proven that there is no real market for this.

[Magicite]

console business is very risk atm, its nearly impossible for other companies to create brand new console and make it succeed.

[-Foxtrot]

Wow another android console....just what we need /s

[Pandamobile]

This seems to be THE Android console though. 4K TV support, Grid, specs that double the power of a last gen console, plus it's the size of modem and it's only $200.

That's gonna be an attractive product to a loooooot of people world wide.

[-Foxtrot]

Untill the next one is announced with other or more features and that will be THE android console

This won't take off...it will be forgotten about like the Shield and cater to a small audience

When they or others say they are making a console they should only be allowed to label it one if its actually going to compete with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

[Christopher]

If only there was worthwhile hardcaore gaming support on Android. Mostly it's just ports, and some of it from games from over a century ago.

If you want to be taken seriously for consoles, IMHO, you need to focus on putting out more than just casual games we play on our phones.

I agree with the gentleman quoted in the article that gaming in this regard is a billion dollar industry. Problem is, that industry currently sits with F2P models of in-app purchases and not with console-based games.

[MrSec84]

I wonder what the subscription cost will be?
Price of the system in the UK?

I doubt people will go for this if they have to both pay a monthly fee of like $20 and pay for their games.
If it doesn't run perfect and provide the same level of quality as a PC then people won't want to pay for all of that.

If your internet goes down or slows down then the big AAA PC games either won't be accessible or they will run very poorly and frame drops will be severe.
Lot of issues here.

Just some things to think about, rhetorical points in case anyone doesn't get I'm just spit-balling about this. ;)

Oh yeah if NVidia wants to be a console producer then they need to make exclusives for the system, that will mean have their own 1st party developers.

[Sevir]

This is hardly anything to celebrate about. Its still very much a last generation console.

For all the talk Nvidia has with hating game console business they sure are keen to fragment the market. in a years time both the XBO and PS4 may very well be sitting at $200. They should just stick to making and providing chips for their partners in the mobile space because just like their failed NVIDIA Shield handheld this will be forgotten faster than it was announced.

[Eonjay]

The only thing about the Android boxes is that there are so many of them. And then of course you have Amazon... I was interested in developing for the OBox.

[husomc]

my Chinese android tv box can do this

[joab777]

Who? What can you really do with it. It says it's 2x the Xbox 360 bit is sluggish when playing a last gen game.

When I saw shield for your TV, I thought...awesome, a way to play PC games on my TV. But what can it play, other than google play games.

I don't see the market for it. I'd rather pay $400 for something I could hook to my TV and play PC games on.

[NeoTribe]

Who the hell needs 4k resolution to play candy crush and age of war?...

[sweendog]

The android console business reminds me of the time the 3DO, Philips CD and Jaguar released. Why buy uncertain hardware when you can buy a console brand you already know.

All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again

[Ark_]

Not sure whom they are aiming for: too weak for core gamers and too nerdy for the general public. Any ideas?

[MrSec84]

It's meant for all people that have a modern TV, so you can play anything you could play on PC and android games, but yeah requiring another subscription to use the big gaming GRID stuff isn't going to be for everyone.

Pretty small HDD too, that model only has 16GB, I wonder if you can plug in an external HDD? If so that kind of ruins the form factor being so small.

[joab777]

What great PC games will you be able to play, if it has a hard time playing borderlands the presequel?

[MrSec84]

@joab777: Borderlands was being run on the Tegra X1 in the console, but more graphically intensive games will be run in the cloud on NVidia's Grid.

The issues with that are that they have already stated it has a 150ms delay for the game code, to game at 60FPS requires 16.6ms, so Shield and the Grid combined are already 9X slower.

The only way I can see them getting around that is if the X1 and local hardware is rendering everything local that you're directly interacting with and the GRID is handling the part of the scene's far off details that you won't be directly interacting with, in that case it can work, but if your internet drops out then you won't be playing your games at anything but a crawl or not at all.
Unless NVidia allows you to use a local GPU on a PC and kind of Pier 2 Pier networks it from your home, which basically means you're paying for a subscription, over the top priced games and you still need a PC.

This thing has no real market, it's no answer to a modern console, because it has no exclusives as far as we know, even if it does, the developers will probably be unknown's, I doubt a big AAA publisher would risk putting their games on it.

It seems pretty pointless in all honesty.

[GokuSolosAll]

$200 for an Android console? Bwahahahah.

...Oh wait, they're serious?

[Dasteru]

You must be a little kid without a job if you think there is anything funny about it. $200 is very reasonable for an android console with these specs. I payed $500 for my 10" galaxy tablet when it first launched. It is about 30% more powerful than the WiiU and is $100 less expensive.

[Mikeyy]

Lightning fast 150MS latency (TM)

[WeaseL]

This is nothing more than a Steam competitor, so who's going to dump there Steam library for this?

[GreenRanger]

It'll likely be used more for emulation than hardcore gaming.

[ltachiUchiha]

Im good, ill prolly buy one when my ipad breaks to use as a replacement.

[JaXion5]

Give it a few months and everybody will have forgotten about it.

[JackBNimble]

Ya , including Nvidia.

[ironfist92]

Will they claim to have false specs again?

[Plagasx]

I'm getting flashbacks of Ouya.....

[ABizzel1]

Except Ouya was $100, and significantly weaker, and didn't have nearly the amount of games this has, didn't have NVIDIA backing it (biggest name in PC GPUs, which means they hold some weight on what gets ported to their platform), and didn't have PC streaming service.

[Rimeskeem]

Are we supposed to care about this?

I'm sorry but i just can't care about android systems

[ginsunuva]

Android is just an OS. Android =/= mobile.

Who cares what OS a game runs on?

[telekineticmantis]

For that 200, get a WiiU, youd get better games.

[ABizzel1]

Except the fact that PC games are coming to this, and it's $100 cheaper than a Wii U, with cheaper games, and more powerful.

It's a huge sign that Nintendo needs to cut the price of the Wii U, and the 360 and PS3 should be edging closer to the $99 mark.

[plmkoh]

PC games that you've either played years before or already can on a better system: the PC.

[ABizzel1]

@plmkoh

The difference then is, the fact that this is a $200 gaming PC, that games well for a entry level product instead of a $500 gaming PC that rivals the or edges the PS4.

[Bladesfist]

Isn't the whole point of this to stream games / music / TV? I don't think its main selling point is supposed to be android games.

It looks like a great device for people who want to stream their games but I'm not sure who that audience is.

[bleedsoe9mm]

i get why they want this allot of money in a streaming service , not sure why its a better deal for me than the ps4 , xb1 or pc .

[AudioEppa]

They and others wanna be a game console so bad, but why? nothing is going to change about how the majority of people like to play video games, at least not for a decade or two from now.

They waste their time and resources on something that's only going to appeal to a small margin of people, stupid.

[kickerz]

Would rather Sega announcing Dreamcast 2....

[Brotard]

What I wonder is how peripherals work with streaming consoles only? Like could they ever add vr or something to this console or would that require more hardware?

[ginsunuva]

It's not streaming-only. That is already possible on any android device easily.

[Brotard]

okay but i wonder if the android peripherals work for the streamed pc games

[3styler]

This is no true gaming console alright, just more like a bigger nvidia shield..

[WitWolfy]

If it cant run Steam OS AT LEAST, then who cares!?!

[StrykerDragoon]

Is it going to play PC games and Steam games? If so I'll buy it instead of a new desktop