If you thought set top boxes were going the way of the Dodo, think again. NVIDIA has announced that they will be partnering with Google to create an Android based top set box with a focus on gaming.
It is from the SHIELD series, which has already released an eclectic collection of products related to gaming, a handheld console and a tablet.
While a first glance it would seem as though this is just a console and not really a set top box, it shows how far the definition has come After all, the XBox, Playstation and Wii series are all multimedia, with a whole entertainment center pushed into a single device. It would seem that the Android SHIELD box will be similar.
The company’s preview shown during a press conference earlier today claimed it would “revolutionize” with a mix of TV, a primary goal of offering the best possible gaming experience, and all made possible through use of a supercomputer.
Looking into the past, we can find plenty of examples of cool sounding gaming platforms that never made it past the basic phase. But this probably won’t be one of them. Utilizing the brand power of Google, they have already put together a list of 200 available games at launch.
Huge titles like Borderlands and Marvel Lego Heroes are being integrated into the system, and more will be coming. Android is a well established dominating force in the mobile world, so seeing them leak into gaming system (and TV circa a more solid product than the already popular Chromecast) is hardly a shock.
What’s more, the specs of the SHIELD box actually back up their claims, at least as far as the information we have so far. It comes with a teraflops worth of computing power (a measurement that it doesn’t matter how often I see/hear it, I will always half believe it is fictional), support for 4k television, A Tegra X-1 CPU, and a GetForce GPU.
This might not be such big news if it weren’t for the fact that NVIDIA is releasing it. An Android gaming console is all well and good, but one that is being developed by one of the best known computer hardware manufacturers in the world? That gets your attention. With the two working together, you have hardware and software covered.
The SHIELD is going to be a force to be reckoned with, that is for sure.
Source: NVIDIA
