After being announced at CES in January, Nvidia has finally announced details on availability for their hand-held gaming console, which up to now has been called Project Shield, the name has been officially announced as simply: SHIELD.
The Tegra 4 powered device will go up for pre-order in the US and Canada via retailers Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center and Canada Computers for $349 on May 20th, with orders shipping in June.
International availability is expected with the FAQ portion of the shield.nvidia.com website offering international visitors the option to sign up for notifications on when SHIELD will be available in your region.
The device will support TegraZone, Google Play as well as Steam games covering a large portion of the gaming eco-system. It will also offfer a Beta feature which will give you access to your NVIDIA GeForce GTX powered PC from the device, with the option for streaming games being worked on. Two games are offered on the device at launch – Sonic 4 Episode II THD and Expendable: Rearmed.
The SHIELD includes a Tegra 4 CPU which includes 72 GPU cores, four CPU cores and is supported by 2GB of RAM. It has a 5″ 720P multi-touch display with gaming controller which features a D-Pad, left and right analog triggers, full-sized bumpers and A/B/X/Y buttons attached. Sound wise the unit comes with a pair of integrated speakers.
We’re reaching out to Nvidia on a local level for more details on an Australian launch and we’ll be sure to update with more information as it becomes available.
