While a somewhat valiant effort from a specs/control perspective, I think this is going to be a pretty big flop. Primarily because it doesn't have much of a market, which means that they won't be able to overcome the chicken-and-egg issue.
There's a reason why the main gaming console manufacturers also have large development studios as well. Every new gaming device needs a killer app to launch it past the critical mass where it becomes economically beneficial for outside developers (3rd parties) to also release software for said platform.
nVidia doesn't have game studios (that they've announced anyway) so they're going to be relying on the broader Android gaming developers. However, Android developers are going to be targeting the hundreds of millions of phone/tablet Android devices and not unknown number of Shield owners.
So if very few developers are going to take the development resources to make games that take advantage of the Shield then how many gamers are going to want to spend the kind of money this will cost, when there are MANY other great alternatives (E3 this year will see the announcement of PS4 and the next Xbox).
If the hardcore gamers aren't going to be purchasing this system, then that leaves the so-called casual gamers. However, by definition this thing is targeting hardcore gamers so it doesn't have much appeal to casual gamers at all. Which means there's a very narrow market segment that is seriously interested in this.
Android gaming is going to boom this year I think. The market is primed for mobile gaming to take off into more graphically intensive game territory, and the industry has been getting sized up for years.
And this is the Android gaming device. A controller that doesn't require a usb port or finnicky wifi / bluetooth. So that is its killer feature.
As somebody who is really interested in retrogaming (and loves his gp2x wiz like a beloved pet), I'm definitely in the market for this. I've found that as I'm getting a little older smaller handhelds are getting harder and harder for me to enjoy. This thing looks perfect, and I already know there's a pretty robust emulator ecosystem for Android already.
Nvidia has good relationships with a lot of game developers, and they've created the Tegra Zone store, for which the developers optimize their games (well for the Tegra chips). As long as they keep optimizing them for Tegra 3 and Tegra 4, the Shield should have plenty of games - certainly more than any new console, which usually have like 15 games at launch. Not to mention these games are a lot cheaper than a typical console game - literally an order of magnitude cheaper.
I think you read a different article than I did. The Ars Technica article doesn't mention the Shield at all, just the Tegra 4.
Anyway, it sounds like NVidia is putting out a device to show people what the Tegra 4 can do. They have to build prototype devices anyway; they might as well sell a few of them while they're at it. They're not expecting to create their own platform: the Shield is just useful for basically acting as a controller for your PC or as a box for playing Android games.
There's more to the market than "hardcore gamers" (how hardcore can you be using a portable device anyway?) There's the Windows 8 tablet and Android tablet markets, which NVidia would very much like to win. I also would not be greatly surprised to see an SoC like this in Steam's new box, either.
There's a reason why the main gaming console manufacturers also have large development studios as well. Every new gaming device needs a killer app to launch it past the critical mass where it becomes economically beneficial for outside developers (3rd parties) to also release software for said platform.
nVidia doesn't have game studios (that they've announced anyway) so they're going to be relying on the broader Android gaming developers. However, Android developers are going to be targeting the hundreds of millions of phone/tablet Android devices and not unknown number of Shield owners.
So if very few developers are going to take the development resources to make games that take advantage of the Shield then how many gamers are going to want to spend the kind of money this will cost, when there are MANY other great alternatives (E3 this year will see the announcement of PS4 and the next Xbox).
If the hardcore gamers aren't going to be purchasing this system, then that leaves the so-called casual gamers. However, by definition this thing is targeting hardcore gamers so it doesn't have much appeal to casual gamers at all. Which means there's a very narrow market segment that is seriously interested in this.