Nvidia Shield delayed till July for "Mechanical Issues"

The Nvidia Shield was set to go on sale tomorrow, but it looks like those plans have changes as TechCrunch is reporting that a mechanical issue tied to a third party supplier has been discovered. This has led to the decision by Nvidia to pushback the launch of the Shield till next month. Nvidia stated:

During our final QA process, we discovered a mechanical issue that relates to a 3rd party component.  We want every SHIELD to be perfect, so we have elected to shift the launch date to July.  We’ll update you as soon as we have an exact date.

We have to commend Nvidia, as this is the first of potentially a new product segment and anything less than a stellar first attempt at a dedicate Android handheld could kill any change of traction with consumers or game developers.

Nvidia Shield now official, public pre-orders started, to be shipped end of June

One of the big headliners at CES 2013 has just gone official, Project Shield is now the Nvidia Shield. Pre-Orders have gone live directly through Nvidia as well as through Canadian Retailer Canada Computers. According to finalized specs the Shield has a 5-inch 720p HD multitouch display, Nvidia Tegra 4 Quad Core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (with MicroSD Card support), dual stereo reflex speakers, HDMI out and of course the hardware controller.

The Shield is running Stock Android 4.2.1, and it preloaded with Nvidia's Tegra Zone application which will feature all the Tegra optimized games, as well as allow users to connect to a computer equipped with a GeForce GTX (600 series or better) and stream PC games right to the Shield via .

For now the streaming capabilities are marked as beta and the Steam Big Picture games and GeForce optimized games are probably not as many as Nvidia was wishing for.

The Nvidia Shield is still quite an interesting device and we are working on getting our hands on a review unit.

Nvidia's Project Shield won't be cheap

Nvidia dropped what is arguable the biggest bomb of CES 2013 and we are now getting more information about the well talked about device. Nvidia has gone on the record to say that they will not sell the device at a loss and continue to say that they will "make [their] money by selling the device to gamers". For those of you not familiar with how the gaming industry works, companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony sell consoles at below manufacturing costs (essentially a loss) to drive games sales and make profits from those sales.

In Nvidia's case, they have decided to buck the norm and sell the device at profit. While we understand the need for this strategy, given that Android and especially PC have strong game ecosystems, we aren't sure how well the strategy will pan out. In the case of non-smartphone Android devices, consumers have been extremely sensitive to pricing. Look no further than the failure of non-Nexus tablets and the relative success of an aggressively priced tablet like the Nexus 7.

We don't doubt in the technology behind Project Shield, but if history is any indication, we can't see the product being a big hit if it carries a hefty price tag.

[CES 2013] Nvidia unveils their handheld console 'Project Shield'

After just announcing their next generation Cortex-A15 quad Core Tegra 4 processor, Nvidia also showed off its "Project Shield" handheld console. It's powered by the very Tegra 4 they had just announced and would sport specs like a 5inch 720p display, a 3400mah battery and standard micro-HDMI, micro-USB, MicroSD card slot and 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The device itself would be running an unaltered version of vanilla Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It, in addition to running android games, would be able to play games, like Steam on Big Picture, run on a user's Nvidia Kepler equipped host PCs.

According to Nvidia, it will be available to Canadians in Q2 2013. 

[CES 2013] Nvidia unveils the Tegra 4 next gen Quad-Core CPU

CES hasn't even technically started and Nvidia has already started off with a bang by announcing their next generation Tegra 4 Chipset. The new Quad-Core CPU is said to be based on the next generation Cortex-A15 ARM architecture making it one of the first Quad Core Cortex-A15 chips. Word is that it could also possibly be based on the 28nm manufacturing process which would increase battery efficiency on the 4+1 core setup that Nvidia has been touting devices running on their Tegra chipsets.

Unfortunately, according to The Verge, the Tegra 4 will not have an integrated LTE chip like on the Qualcomm Dual-Core MSM8960 found in the North American One X and Galaxy S III which has proven to be a very strong chipset in terms of reduced power consumption. This doesn't mean that Tegra 4 won't have LTE capabilities but rather would need a separate LTE modem, which as we know isn't as battery efficient.

HTC phones to get Playstation Certification?

Pocket-Lint.com is reporting this morning that an Anonymous source tells them that HTC smartphones will be one of the first to receive Playstation Certification outside of the Sony brand. Color us a bit skeptical as Sony isn't exactly one to be known to share. But if this is indeed true it would be a real coup for HTC. Given their focus on multimedia with the Majority stakes in Beats, now rumors of PlayStation certification and let's not forget the potential for the first Quad-Core Tegra 3 phone on the horizon, HTC just might put itself back in the contention after a rocky end of 2011. Pocket-Lint goes on to say that PlayStation certified HTC devices would be made available in the second half of 2012 but we expect that if this rumor is true it should be a feature that should be implemented on capable devices that were launched without certification.

NVIDIA Tegra 2 devices to get Playstation Certification

NVIDIA has announced via their Tegra Zone app that Sony will be bringing Playstation games to Tegra equipped Android smartphones and tablets.

This is by all accounts a great match as NVIDIA has shown that its experience, with gaming hardware, in the the PC world has translated to success in the smartphone market and Sony, a leader in the gaming market, made a huge splash with its announcement of the Playstation Suite.