New Nvidia Shield Brings High-End PC Graphics to Your TV

Nvidia has announced its new Shield gaming device during a livestreamed GDC 2015 press event tonight. The Android TV-based console is powered by Nvidia's Tegra X1 Super Chip, comes bundled with one Shield controller, and will have a recommended retail price of $200.

Like previous Shield devices, the new Shield allows you to stream games from your Nvidia GeForce-powered PC to your device or a TV. The device can be controlled using a bluetooth remote, which can act as a receiver for headphones. A microphone on the bottom of the remote will be able to take voice commands. The remote will be sold separately and is rechargeable via USB.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang described its Tegra X1 Super Chip as possessing twice the power of the Xbox 360, and six times more RAM, with a fifth of the power requirements. The Shield console supports DirectX 12. The Shield's controller sports 40 hours of battery life.

As part of the show, Nvidia demonstrated Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, The Talos Principle, and Crysis 3 on the machine running at "30 frames per second." It is worth noting that the latter will be an Android port of the game, powered the latest version of CryEngine. Resident Evil Revelations 2 producer Michiteru Okabe also confirmed during the presentation that Resident Evil 5 would be released on the Android store.

The Shield will be released for $200 with 50 Android games at launch.

Nvidia also announced the GRID subscription store, a paid service which grants streaming of several triple A games at 720. New games can be purchased and play in addition to the additional paid subscription.

According to Huang, GRID will "do for gaming what Netflix did for videos. Do what Spotify did for music." GRID will have an approximate response time of 150ms, what Nvidia dubs "half the time it takes for an eye to blink."

Two subscription models will be available when GRID launches in May; one basic and one premium. Games on the GRID will not require downloading as they will be streamed via the cloud.

This is a breaking news story. Additional details to follow.