We forget sometimes that video games are like supercomputer simulations, masterful demonstrations of technology used in the service of entertainment. So don’t be surprised that some of the best new technologies are being created in conjunction with games. Here’s GamesBeat’s perspective on the best new technologies at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big video game trade show held last week in Los Angeles.

1. Oculus VR showed off the latest prototype of its industry-buzz building Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset — featuring a hot-off-the-factory-line 1080p panel. “We’re now putting the flag in the ground. … It’s at least 1080p. That’s what we’re showing here,” Brendan Iribe, Oculus VR chief executive officer, told GamesBeat. “Most likely, this is what people are going to be experiencing.” The unit featured a significantly better picture than the developer model that shipped to the Rift’s Kickstarter backers. “We’re still optimizing the lenses. … There’s a whole number of things that we’re still looking at,” Iribe said. Regardless, a better image leads to a better effect. What Oculus demoed provided an exciting look into the future of immersive gaming experiences — and other simulated endeavors. – Eduardo Moutinho.

2. Sony’s PlayStation 4 is an impressive piece of hardware. It uses the same silicon cores from Advanced Micro Devices as Microsoft’s Xbox One console. But Sony focused all of its engineering efforts on making games look their best. Sony’s machine uses faster GDDR5 graphics-oriented random access memory. And because it has one operating system instead of three, it requires less memory for the box’s overhead operations. The graphics memory delivers 176 gigabytes per second of memory to the combined CPU/GPU chip, compared to 68 gigabytes for the Xbox One. Sony’s machine will likely be able to display 4K video and games once the higher resolution televisions and displays arrive. While Microsoft dedicated its console budget to entertainment and Kinect features, Sony went all in on games. That could be a winning formula in head-to-head comparisons. But it’s up to game developers to exploit Sony’s processing advantage. If they can’t make games that stand out from Microsoft’s, then the bet won’t pay off as well as expected. Of course, Sony can’t brag too much: The high-end PC will run circles around the PS 4. – Dean Takahashi

3.Microsoft’s new Kinect is a tech marvel that uses 3D depth sensors, microphones, and a high-definition camera to capture your body in motion. The new version for the Xbox One can detect up to six people at the same time instead of just two. The field of view is 60 percent wider, so you don’t have to stand ten feet away anymore. It can distinguish among your fingers, whether you are smiling or frowing, which way your limbs are turned, and even detect your heatbeat based on movements in your face. The system can recognize your voice and it will respond instantly if you say “Xbox on” by turning on the machine from a deep sleep. Kinect can recognize your face and automatically switch to your preferences when you pick up a controller. You can issue voice commands and it will respond instantly if you want to change the channel on your television or answer an incoming Skype call. It’s so good that Microsoft had to reassure people that it would not use Kinect to spy on people and that players have the option to turn it off if they wish. Kinect uses two dedicated silicon chips in the Xbox One to handle all of its processing needs, but it can tap the cloud as well. – Dean Takahashi

4. Microsoft’s cloud processing holds a lot of promise for the Xbox One. With cloud processing, the game console offloads non-urgent processing tasks to the web-connected data centers. This so-called cloud of processors can be much more powerful than the game console alone, performing tasks such as artificial intelligence or background rendering that aren’t as essential to the instantaneous twitch experience of games. That means that one day, Microsoft could simply upgrade its hardware for the Xbox One by upgrading the hardware in its data centers. The technology will be useful in Forza Motorsport 5, a racing game where artificial intelligence is used to create rival drivers for the computer-controlled cars that you race against. The so-called Drivatar captures your patterns as a driver and uploads them to the cloud. Once analyzed, the Drivatar delivers an AI driver that approximates the same kind of skilled driving that you demonstrate in your games. Dan Greenawalt, creative director at Turn Ten Studios, the maker of Forza, calls this the “death of AI.” We’re not so sure about that, but it makes sense to split some processing between Microsoft’s 300,000 servers and the Xbox One. In a demo, Microsoft showed that it could turn an asteroid belt with 40,000 asteroids rendered on a local machine to an asteroid belt with 500,000 asteroids using cloud processing. The danger of cloud processing is that you might lose your internet connection. But in that case, the technology should fail over to local processing without a hitch. – Dean Takahashi

5. Microsoft’s Xbox One game controller is a step above the last generation when it comes to immersive, tactile feedback. The company was able to physically test lots of models thanks to its rapid prototyping 3D printer technology. The new device has magnetic triggers for both index fingers. These triggers can give you different touch feedback. Older controllers would simply shake when you were shooting a gun. But the new controller sends different sensations. Microsoft hasn’t shown the tech working in games yet, but it showed off a half-dozen demos that make you feel things like the kick of a gun, the rumble of helicopter rotors, the squeal of brakes in ca race car, and even the beat of your very own heartbeat, which Kinect can detect. The device does’t have a “share button” or a touchpad like Sony’s controller. But it does have an infrared LED on the front of the controller that, when combined with Kinect, can clearly identify the person who is using the controller. As a result, you can easily jump in and out of games. This may not seem like much of an advantage on the surface, but it is an improvement to the overall experience of playing games that you’ll know for sure when you feel it in your hands. – Dean Takahashi

6. Microsoft Xbox Smartglass has moved forward as a “second screen” app that serves as a companion for your games. Smartglass is integrated directly into Xbox One so you can use a Microsoft smartphone or tablet to control or view features in your game. You can use Smartglass to start a game, set up and launch multiplayer, look at your achievements, and view the timeline. While watching a demo of Crytek’s Ryse: Son of Rome game, I saw that the timeline tells you what percent of a game’s level you have completed while you are playing it. You can view game play hints, status of friends, and see the stats of your friends and how they stack up against your own. Xbox Smartglass will match you based on your skill, your language, and your reputation. – Dean Takahashi

7. The Virtuix Omni is similar to devices like the Oculus Rift. It plans to deliver more immersive gameplay for players. The Omni, however, is all about movement. According to Simon Solotko, public relations representative for Virtuix, “The Omni is a natural interface for virtual reality that enables locomotion. It enables you to run, walk, or jump in virtual reality.”

GamesBeat experienced the Omni first hand, and the technology shows promise. Virtuix chief executive officer Jan Goetgeluk skillfully played through a Half-Life 2 demo, successfully navigating one of the levels from the first-person shooter. The entire setup consisted of an Omni, Oculus Rift, Microsoft Kinect (for body-tracking purposes), and a standard console gun controller. Players will have to wear special shoes and strap themselves to a belt harness that rests on a safety ring connected to the device. Then, they can walk or run in place by sliding around the Omni’s frictionless base.

While awkward for newcomers, Goetgeluk showed that one can get used to the process. The Omni is just another piece of tech poised to take our gaming experiences to new and exciting frontiers -Eduardo Moutinho.

8. Frostbite 3 is the core engine behind DICE’s Battlefield series. The division of Electronic Arts built a platform for creating high-end 3D games with the editing tools to create spectacular 3D imagery. Battlefield 4 will get the benefits of Frostbite 3, which includes destructible environments and ultra-realistic character animations. EA says that Frostbite 3 in Battlefield 4 will deliver scale and destruction, showing you how huge events such as explosions can be rendered against a sophisticated environment. It also features realistic character animation and immersive audio. EA has bragged about the synergies of its game engines before, but it was infamous for the failure of the Criterion RenderWare acquisition. EA bought Criterion in 2004 for $48 million to create games for the last generation of consoles. But developers hated it and the technology failed. Frank Gibeau, president of worldwide game studios at EA, said that the company once had 17 game engines to build its games. Now it is reusing Frostbite 3 and its Ignite sports game engine for all of its titles. Among the Frostbite 3 engine games: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Command & Conquer, and Mirror’s Edge 2. – Dean Takahashi

9. The Dark Sorcerer short film is Quantic Dream’s latest attempt to create human faces so realistic that they cross the uncanny valley. That’s the aesthetic concept thatholds that the closer animated human faces approach reality, the more unnatural they seem. The video played at E3 is meant to suggests the level of photorealism that the PlayStation 4 console can achieve when it comes to rendering faces, particles, flames, and water drops. The animated face of the Dark Sorcerer is indeed just that — a 3D animation — even though it looks so real. At the moment, Quantic Dream has no plans to turn The Dark Sorcerer, acted by David Gant and directed by Quantic Dream’s David Cage, into a full game. While it seems like a serious demo at first, you’ll quickly see that the The Dark Sorcerer is a comedic spoof of both filmmaking and video game development. Earlier this year, Quantic Dream released a demo dubbed Kara that also demonstrated a new level of emotional realism in 3D-animated human facial expressions. – Dean Takahashi

10. Project Shield is Nvidia’s Hail Mary play to participate in the video game business. Shut out by the console makers when it came to graphics chips, Nvidia decided to build its own portable gaming device using its Tegra 4 mobile processor and the Google Android operating system. Going on sale later this month for $349, Shield can play Android games on a 5-inch high-resolution that is attached to a game controller. The device is aimed at hardcore gamers who want to play Android games on their living room TV, using an HDMI cable for connectivity. Shield will also enable gamers to play PC-based Steam games on the big-screen TV. It remains to be seen if the demand exists for Shield amid so many other devices. Ouya is a competitor bringing Android to the TV, and so are devices like Bluestacks GamePop and GameStick. Shield itself may not be the winning bet for Android in the living room, but you can bet that mobile will give the console makers a headache at some point, given the free or 99-cent pricing for most mobile games. – Dean Takahashi

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Normally, we video game guys don’t have to work too hard when it comes to covering consumer electronics. We have a few consoles, a few handhelds, maybe a few peripherals here and again, but it’s nothing like the crazy world of phones and tablets … or at least it wasn’t.

This year, something happened: We started getting video game consoles from companies other than Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.

These alternative gaming devices, sometimes called microconsoles, come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You want to stream your games like Netflix? You can do that. Want to play Android-based games on a tablet with controls built into a handle? That’s a thing. Want Valve’s Steam experience on your television? It’s happening.

But it’s damn hard to keep up with everything. How do they work? What kind of games will they run? How much do they cost? OK — I’m panicking now just thinking about putting all of this information together for you … but I did.

We’ll try to keep this easy. Let’s get started.

Android-based microconsoles

Ouya

Price: $99
Release date: June 25, 2013
Website: Ouya.tv

Ouya is the single biggest reason I’m explaining all of this. When the tiny console box launched on Kickstarter — and raked in over $8 million from backers — it created more questions about the future of gaming than it answered.

The basic concept of Ouya is that it will bring the open platform of Android to the television. It accomplishes this by providing a cheap box that has the guts of a smartphone but doesn’t rely on touch-screen controls. Instead, it comes with a physical controller with buttons, analog sticks, and everything else that gamers require to run persistently in an ever-scrolling world.

The console plays Android games, most of which aren’t designed for a controller, so Ouya is also a digital-distribution platform that will showcase original games optimized for the platform (and Android games developers redesigned with physical controls).

On top of that, Ouya’s creators also promise the device is completely open to hacking. That means emulators and piracy. A good chunk of consumers may get something like Ouya just to play classic Super Nintendo games on one of the many Android emulator apps. A bunch more might get the system and pirate Android games (not that the developers can’t fight back on Ouya).

For Ouya to succeed, it will have to build a library of games that convince a portion of the audience to get their software directly through the new microconsole. This is possible.

As of late May, the microconsole currently has over 125 games.

Ouya is about to ship out to consumers in just a few months. It could easily launch with games like Minecraft Pocket Edition and others that already have full controller support.

The little Android has a few months to prove it’s worth the HDMI input it’s taking up on your television, otherwise people are likely to forget it as the new consoles come pouring down and wash it away.

GameStick

Price: $79
Release date: June 25, 2013
Website: Gamestick.tv

Take everything I wrote about Ouya and apply it to GameStick. It’s nearly all the same, but the GameStick is smaller than Ouya and $20 cheaper.

This thumb-drive-sized HDMI device uses Android. It has smartphone-like components. It comes with a physical controller. It has its own digital distribution platform.

The main difference between Ouya and GameStick is that PlayJam, the company behind this tiny device, is a game developer first. That could mean the GameStick will have better software support. It’s also possible that it is less powerful than Ouya, but both can probably handle similar software.

GameStick’s Kickstarter raised $647,658 from 5,691 backers.

Android-based tablet-controller hybrids

Nvidia Shield

Price: $350
Release date: June 2013
Website: Shield.nvidia.com

Now things start getting weird. We went full hands-on with Nvidia’s Shield Android handheld at the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s an impressive gaming device with some seriously cool features.

Nvidia’s handheld looks like an Xbox controller with a TV jammed into it. It features the company’s next-gen Tegra 4 processor and a 5-inch touch screen that flips up during gameplay.

It’s another controller-focused take on Android gaming. It has an HDMI port, so gamers can plug it into their televisions and use it just like Ouya. Developers are gonna have a lot of options if they want to make a mobile game that supports physical buttons.

But Project Shield has something Ouya and GameStick do not: The ability to stream games from your PC directly to the portable unit. This doesn’t mean you’ll be playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the bus, but your PC could feed games to the system if you’re sitting on your couch. In that way, the device is a lot like a Wii U GamePad controller for the PC. Only instead of New Super Mario Bros. U, gamers can tap into their entire Steam libraries.

At $350, it is more than triple the price of the other two Android microconsoles, but it is also much more powerful and full of features.

Wikipad 7

Price: $249
Release date: Spring 2013
Website: wikipad.com

Wikipad is the name of the company and the product. The device is a 7-inch Android-based tablet that comes with a game-controller dock. This shell adds analog sticks, face buttons, and shoulder buttons to what is otherwise a pretty standard Android slate. Those controls, however, allow for precision gaming in titles from both the Google Play market and the PlayStation Mobile Store.

Sony provides a lot of classic PlayStation titles on its Android store, and a system with physical controls is the ideal way to experience them. Only Sony-approved devices can access its store, so hopefully GameStick, Ouya, and Project Shield can get on that list.

Wikipad originally planned to launch a 10-inch tablet in late 2012, but that never materialized. Now, it’s struggling to get its Tegra 3-powered Wikipad 7 out to consumers before the tech ages out of viability. Even if the company does get it out before the end of June, it probably won’t catch on with gamers.

“[Wikipad 7] was a great idea on paper, but someone forgot to write ‘good design’ on the [design] sheet,” GamesBeat’s Dan “Shoe” Hsu wrote in our hands-on with the ‘crappy’ product in April.

You would think that the delays would have led to a better result. This thing is gonna have a hard time as it is, but against a potentially better-designed Nvidia product running a next-gen graphics chip … well, I don’t like its chances.

Windows-based tablet-controller hybrid

Razer Edge

Price: $999 (base)/$1299 (pro)/$1499 (pro + gamepad)
Release date: Q3 2013
Website: Razerzone.com

OK, enough Android. Perhaps you prefer your console/handheld alternatives IBM-compatible? Gaming equipment company Razer might have what you need.

It’s called Razer Edge. It’s a 10-inch Windows-based gaming tablet with screaming hardware. The $999 “basic” version starts with a Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor that can overclock to 2.6 GHz. It has 4 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, and a GeForce GT 640M graphics card all packed into something not much bigger than a standard tablet. The $1299 Pro model upgrades the system to a Core i7, 8 GB RAM, and 128 or 256 GB SSD.

A rig with the Edge’s specs can run Skyrim at around medium to high settings. That’s not bad for a portable device.

Add $200 to the price and it comes with a controller dock similar to the Wikipad. Razer Edge also has a keyboard dock for traditional gaming and a living-room dock with a plethora of inputs and outputs. Just like most things on this list, the Razer Edge can connect to your TV, work with wireless controllers, and replace your console.

Valve-approved Windows/Linux-based Steam Box things

Xi3 Piston

Price: $999
Release date: March 2013
Website: Xi3.com

The Steam Box is something much more nebulous than the Xi3 Piston micro PC, but it gives us a good idea of what Valve wants.

Valve is pushing the idea of a TV-connected gaming PC pretty hard. The Xi3 is a result of that. Valve put some money into Xi3 and is definitely experimenting with the company’s hardware. We’ll get into what exactly Valve is doing with the Steam Box as a whole in the very next section, but let’s explain the Piston first.

The Piston is a tiny little powerhouse. It’s a small cube-like device with a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor from AMD that packs the graphic processor on the same chip. It has 8 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage capacity.

You’re supposed to plug this thing into your TV and run Steam in Big Picture mode, the interface the company designed for television displays, and that’s it. You have a Steam console.

The Steam Box

Price: ?
Release date: ?
Website: ?

Valve is working on a piece of hardware all their own. It is a Linux PC that will plug into your TV, but the company is also inviting others to do the same. If those companies want Valve’s help, Valve will help.

The software giant is going for a three-tiered strategy with the so-called “Steam Box.” Valve chief executive officer Gabe Newell called it a “good, better, and best” model in his interview with The Verge.

The “good” solution involves streaming devices. Not something like OnLive or Netflix that streams the data from some centralized location out to your house, but something that streams the games from your gaming PC to your television. Nvidia revealed a graphics card called Grid that is capable of something like that at CES.

The “better” solution is the one that Valve will release. It has a dedicated CPU and GPU. It doesn’t have a physical-media player. It’s small and quiet. It runs Linux, it has its own controller, and Valve will sell it itself.  It is a lot like the Xi3 Piston.

The “best” solution is the craziest, most expensive rigs you can think of. They have all the bells an whistles. They run big, hot, and loud. They aren’t even really Steam Boxes.

Games-streaming service

OnLive

Price: $99.99
Release date: Available now
Website: Onlive.com

OnLive is still a thing.  In August, GamesBeat reported that OnLive went through restructuring that saw its assets sold to another company. It’s still operational, and users can still play games on the service.

For those that don’t remember, OnLive is Netflix for video games. Gamers can stream full console games, like BioShock or Saints Row: The Third, to their PC, tablet, phone, or television without any serious hardware.

For the television, OnLive released a microconsole that can zap the digital platform right to a television. It works surprisingly well, but it the occasional lag is enough to keep it from fully replacing a dedicated gaming system.

Turns out your phone is already a console

MHL cables

Price: $7.65
Release date: Available now
Website: Monoprice.com

The thing about the Ouya and the GameStick is that they’re just focusing on a feature that your Android smartphone is already completely capable of. The Ouya plugs into your television and is compatible with a physical controller. You can do that with a Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S III, or an HTC DNA.

MHL cables allow people to connect a phone to a television HDMI input. Then some Android apps allow players to use a PlayStation 3 or Wii controller to interact with games. It’s a cheap and easy solution that basically amounts to the same thing as Ouya.

Of course, Ouya may encourage more developers to produce controller friendly games, but those titles are compatible with standard Android phones.

Green Throttle Atlas Controller

Price: $44.95
Release date: Early spring 2013
Website: Store.GreenThrottle.com

Green Throttle takes the idea of MHL cables a step further. The company designed its Atlas controller to work with Android phones. It sells the controllers in bundles with the cables required to connect your smartphone to the television.

Green Throttle wants players to use their phones as a console and they want them to use the Atlas to interact with it. The company has its own proprietary digital-download store similar to Ouya and GameStick. With this device, your phone truly is almost no different from either of those dedicated consoles, and it is probably more powerful than at least the GameStick.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nvidia announced today that it’s debuting its Shield portable gaming system in June for $349. Preorders should be live on May 20 on Nvidia’s site.

The new game system plays Android titles on a 5-inch high-resolution screen that sits atop a game controller. Shield is the first game system that graphics chip maker Nvidia has ever made. Its aim is a dual one: Shield can take Android games into the living room (connected via a HDMI cable) and take PC-based Steam games from the computer display to a big-screen TV.

Shield features a console-grade controller; a high-definition, 720p display; Tegra 4-based graphics; and Android games that are available on Nvidia’s TegraZone web site. You can connect your Google Play account to Shield to enjoy your favorite movies, music, and apps on the Shield device. The PC streaming supports most games from your Steam library (provided your video card can run those games, of course) and displays them at 720p.

“I like Nvidia’s sub-segmented approach to the market, as $349 works for both rabid GTX fans and hardcore Android gamers,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “That price won’t drive casual gamers, that is, unless Shield becomes the device every kid needs for the holidays. One thing that big-time gamers will appreciate about Shield that no other handheld or game console can do is leverage those awesome PC gaming titles. As Nvidia grows their supported list of Steam PC games, I expect that to generate a lot of buzz. Nvidia needs to microscopically manage the experience for this to work well for them and Shield users.”

The system will be available on Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center, and Canada Computers. Shield will be able to tap a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU and play the Steam games on that computer on a big-screen TV. The PC will stream the device to Shield, and gamer can play them on the 5-inch screen or on a TV with a HDMI connection.

The system features Tegra 4, which Nvidia calls the world’s fastest mobile processor with 72 graphics cores, four central processing unit (CPU) cores, and 2GB of main memory. Shield has integrated speakers, 802.11n WiFi, Android’s Jelly Bean OS, 16GB of flash memory for storage, global positioning system navigation, Bluetooth 3.0, mini-HDMI output, micro-USB 2.0, a microSD storage slot, and a 3.5 millimeter stereo headphone jack.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Nvidia‘s Project Shield remains on schedule for release in the second quarter, the company’s chief executive said.

Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of the world’s biggest standalone graphics chip maker, said in a speech today to investors that Nvidia is targeting Project Shield — a game controller with a 5-inch screen attached — at the most enthusiastic gamers on the Android platform.

“Shield becomes the ultimate Android gaming device,” he said.

He also noted that Nvidia has invested around $10 million in the project. That’s similar to the $8 million-plus raised via Kickstarter for the Ouya microconsole, but it’s also a lot less than major home console makers spend on a launch. On the other hand, Nvidia spends $880 million a year on the core R&D behind its chips and $300 million more on Tegra itself. All of that money makes it easier to launch Project Shield.

He did not share many other details. He said that Project Shield will “hopefully be on shelves by the end of Q2. It is going into production soon.”

Project Shield lets players enjoy free-to-play Android games on a big screen TV by connecting the Shield device to the TV via a HDMI cable. The aim is to bring the disruptive power of an app store full of free-to-play games to the television in direct competition with $60 games.

With Shield, you can play PC games — like those from the digital distribution service Steam — on the TV or its small portable display. The PC does the hard work of processing the game, using a GeForce graphics processing unit (GPU). It then displays the image on the TV or monitor. Then you can control the game with the Project Shield controller. The PC can also use Wi-Fi to stream the video of the game to the Project Shield screen.

I played the PC version of Borderlands 2 on the Shield today, and it worked great. The graphics are top-notch, and they look good on both the TV screen and the small screen. That capability to play PC games is an edge that Shield has over the likes of Moga, Green Throttle Games, and other devices that can only play Android games. Project Shield is also a good match in this respect for the PC-focused Razor Edge, which Razor will sell for $1,200 or more. You can bet that Nvidia isn’t going to be charging that much for Project Shield. (It has not announced a price).

Nvidia hasn’t announced any Project Shield exclusive games yet — nor has it announced any games at all. On the other hand, it doesn’t have to. It can run your existing collection of PC and Android games.

Project Shield will use Nvidia’s latest Tegra 4 processor, which is going to have PC-like graphics performance. Shield can also tap games that are available on Android in Nvidia’s Tegra Zone game portal. It’s cool to get Android games in the living room. But Huang said that “Android is not just a mobile operating system. It is a computing system.”

Tegra Zone’s user base has grown by 80 percent over the year, said Phil Carmack, head of Nvidia’s Tegra business. Carmack noted that 76 percent of revenue in the Google Play app store is now coming from games.

Here’s a video I shot today with Andrew Coonrad, tech marketing analyst at Nvidia, about Project Shield. Hopefully, Nvidia will have more details available soon.

Project Shield demo from VentureBeat on Vimeo.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Nvidia is investing heavily in its operations now because it has some “once in a lifetime opportunities” in mobile computing these days, said Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of the world’s biggest standalone graphics chip maker, Thursday in a talk at the company’s investor day.

Huang said that those investments are timely because the “PC business declined more in the last quarter than in the last 20 years. Obviously, the computer industry is changing.”

Nvidia has made PC graphics chips since 1993. It is the only standalone survivor in that business, and it competes against processor giants such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (ADM), ARM, and Imagination Technologies (including MIPS).

He said that Nvidia’s Tegra business is at break-even, even as the company ratchets up the investment to more than $300 million a year. Overall, Nvidia research and development has reached $1.2 billion annually. About $880 million of that is core investment in chip design, while $10 million each is focused on new opportunities including Grid systems and the Project Shield handheld gaming system.

“We increased our operating expenses to invest in once in a lifetime opportunities,” Huang said. “These investments are so timely and they must happen now. So our first half is rather muted. We’ll have growth in the second half. The disruption of the traditional market literally happened overnight. That’s why it’s so important for us to keep our foot on the gas.”

This year, Nvidia is investing heavily in the first half in the hopes of achieving growth in the second half, Huang said. He pulled in investments in Tegra 4i, a mobile graphics processor with built-in LTE modem. That investment, he said, “was a good decision by all measures.” That pushed out the debut of Tegra 4 by a quarter, from the first to the second quarter. As a result, Tegra sales will be flat for the year, he said.

Overall, “the exciting thing is the market opportunity ahead of us,” Huang said. The total available market for Tegra chips (with $300 million investment) is $10 billion. The opportunity for Grid computing is $10 billion, and the traditional graphics processing unit (GPU) market opportunity is $6 billion, Huang said. Huang said he thinks the computing business, if not PCs, will continue to grow.

Huang said that GPUs are Nvidia’s “crown jewels,” generating billions of dollars in revenues on the PC thanks to PC gamers and other enthusiasts. Nvidia is in the process of “mobilizing” those crown jewels in products such as Tegra. About three billion devices with graphics chips will be shipping by 2015, at a 12 percent compound annual growth rate. Nvidia is gunning for a sizable share of that.

Huang mentioned that Nvidia has more than 5,000 patents, mostly related to computer graphics. Nvidia is investing in games, enterprise, and computing devices.

With Grid computing, Nvidia is taking that business into the cloud, enabling remote graphics processing and it will lead to multiple users on a single graphics chip.  But Huang said the competition was fierce.

“The opportunities are enormous, but so are the threats,” he said. “Some day, every single processor we make will be a Tegra. But this is not about us growing into mobile devices only. This is about inventing the future of computing.”

At the close of the talk, Huang said that Nvidia will return $1 billion this fiscal year to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividend payments, including $100 million in stock being repurchased this quarter. This will bring to $1.2 billion the total capital returned to shareholders since the company announced its quarterly dividend program in November.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The next generation of household consoles has already started, and boy, are we in for a treat. Not only do we have the big three companies (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) fighting for our limited living room space — we have something more interesting as well: Android and Steam.

Xbox 360 (left), Ouya (center), PS3 (right)

In November, Nintendo launched the Wii U with its touch-screen controller, the GamePad, and high-definition graphics. Sony recently announced the successor to the PlayStation 3, and soon we’ll start seeing the next Xbox. Microsoft and Sony are battling it out in the hardware war, each trying to best the other by being stronger, better, and faster. Nintendo stopped playing that game years ago and decided to try a different approach by offering unique gameplay features with motion controls.

Both Microsoft and Sony tackle the premium side of the market, leaving Nintendo with the lower end to conquer. The last time I checked, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 were in the $299 range, with the Wii hitting a ridiculous $99 and the Wii U around $249. This is fantastic news for us gamers. No matter what your allowance is, you’ll find something that works for you. This brings me to my question: where do Android and Steam fit in?

Valve wants to take over your television.

Valve, the creator of Steam, is working hard to bring its popular digital distribution service from millions of computer screens to your living room TV. To do this, Valve introduced a new feature for Steam called Big Picture Mode (BPM). Essentially, this enables gamers to run Steam with a controller in front of a TV rather than a keyboard and mouse. It does this by changing up the user interface. I use BPM fairly often when playing games that are gamepad-enabled, and I quite enjoy it.

Valve has also announced it will be coming out with its own hardware to slap its new software experience on. This technology has been cleverly named the Steam Box. Details are scarce at the moment. What we do know is that Valve wants to make PC gaming easier and more comfortable by presenting a console-like experience. Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve, has said he expects Steam Box prototypes in the next few months.

Valve has kept mum about pricing, which is unfortunate. This is what everyone wants to know. This is the deal breaker. PC gaming can be ridiculously expensive. If Valve is able to bring powerful hardware, a small form-factor, and reasonable pricing together in one happy package, that could mean a massive shift for PC gaming. People wouldn’t dismiss it just because of the price barrier. The need for a monitor, speakers, keyboards, mice, and so forth would be gone. Instead, you plug the device into your TV, and it does the rest.

Ouya controller and the system.

Android is a different beast altogether. It’s the only system that is based as a mobile platform, and now it seems to be steering its way to your television. At least, that’s what the Ouya console is promising: a $99 Android console that hooks up to your TV. It’s a no-frills system. The developers encourage you to mess with it — they want you to get your hands dirty and mod the system. This fact alone will probably lure in much of the modding community. The Ouya may have a strange name and an affordable price, but does it have the games to back it up? A console can’t survive without a strong library. Perhaps with the convenience of a controller at hand, more games like Dead Trigger and Shadowgun will populate the Android marketplace.

Ouya isn’t the only console getting Android games on the big screen. Nvidia recently announced and showed off what it calls Project Shield. It looks very similar to a Xbox 360 controller with a 5-inch HD screen attached to it. Project Shield is backed by some serious horsepower, and it’ll be able to play any game from the Android marketplace as well as stream your Steam library over a Wi-Fi connection. A price and release date have yet to be announced. Nvidia will have to take a close look at its competitors, the Nintendo 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Vita. The 3DS seems to be priced just right at the $149 mark whereas the Vita is struggling with sales — probably because of its higher $249 price. I’m afraid that Nvidia might have the specs and form factor down but will miss the beat with a too-high price tag to justify buying the slick piece of hardware.

Project Shield in all its glory.

Android is in a unique place right now, and it has the freedom to cover all angles of the market. From the Ouya to Nvidia’s Project Shield, it has the low-end and high-end markets covered. But if Valve can get the right combo of price/performance, we’ll very likely see PC gaming become much more common in the living room. Sony and Microsoft are going to battle for the most horsepower while Nintendo quietly and safely experiments with crazy motion and touch controls. One thing is for sure: we’ve never seen anything quite like this before. These companies and platforms are all fighting a war for our living rooms.

Welcome to the next generation.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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As a lifelong player of console games, I’ve cringed watching the industry change this year. Old guard mainstays like THQ are getting hacked apart and sold to the highest bidder while the majority of the industry keeps releasing uninspired sequels. When you consider we’ve been killing the same aliens in Halo for the last 12 years, you begin to feel a bit like Sisyphus — pushing the same boulder up a hill without ever really progressing toward anything.  

This year was supposed to be the year Sony and Microsoft knocked our pants off with earth-shaking console reveals, and so far, the PlayStation 4 just feels like my grandma trying to pitch me on a Zune. “You kids like sharing things, right? We made a whole button for that!”

Then we have the new kid in school. The Fonz to console’s Richie Cunningham: mobile gaming. The market, which is estimated to generate over $9 billion globally in 2013, has come of age. As mobile devices become more technologically advanced, major names like Disney and Electronic Arts have begun to take them seriously while still leaving room for indie success stories like Imangi Studios and its hit series, Temple Run. The writing’s on the wall that our generation will probably see consoles finally pass the torch to mobile.

But how will these two segments interact with each other during the change? How will the transition happen? What’s to become of the developers? What about all that beautiful intellectual property? Here are three things to be aware of as mobile gaming continues to grow.

Mobile should take the IP and run

As we learned from Netflix with House of Cards, great exclusive content can boost consumer interest in a platform. One sad side effect of console developers shutting down is a lot of great games will get lost in the shuffle.

Sure, a lot of the recognizable games will be bought and carry on with a different developer, but not all of them. Nobody, for instance, has picked up the Darksiders franchise since THQ’s collapse. That series, despite its faults, has a lot of potential and room for at least two more sequels.

Larger mobile developers have an opportunity to buy the rights to these games and relaunch them as mobile titles. This would be a great idea for new consoles trying to gain a market share, like Ouya (pictured at top) and Nvidia’s Project Shield. The gameplay lends itself to that type of console, and it comes with a built-in fanbase. Additionally, it gives mobile a chance to offer a home to all the forgotten and neglected console gaming franchises out there.

Console developers can make better use of free-to-play

Ask any gamer on Xbox Live what the most divisive issue in gaming this year is and, after telling you how they slept with your mother, they’ll probably say in-game purchases.

Spearheaded by EA, console developers have seen just how much money there is to be made from free-to-play mobile games and have begun adopting the business model. Now you can buy better guns in Dead Space 3, and Borderlands 2 is constantly rolling out more downloadable content. Whether or not this enhances the game experience, it doesn’t have the same feel as free-to-play on mobile — mainly because it’s not free. When a gamer has already spent $60 on a title, it’s hard not to look greedy when you start asking them to pay for DLC that might keep the game fresh and interesting. It leaves the same bad taste in gamers’ mouths as having to see ads in the Xbox Marketplace even though they’re already paying a monthly subscription fee.

If console developers want to take the freemium model seriously, they need to lower the barrier of entry to their games. Put the price tag closer to $10 and implement pervasive monetization opportunities beyond that. This extends the game’s shelf life. Good freemium models will also help developers earn more revenue off their user base instead of having one big purchase point, which will eventually be lost to a used games market that they have no stake in.

Technology like Ouya might bridge the gap

One of the stand-out stories at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year was Ouya founder Julie Uhrman’s keynote interview, in which she discussed her Android-powered console’s place in the gaming market. It’s easy to imagine Ouya as the chosen child destined to bring balance to the Force. It’s got the body of a console but the brains of Android. It will target players in their living room while delivering mobile-type experiences with free-to-play games.

If Ouya’s low price enables it to gain mass market appeal, it could very well bridge the gap between console and mobile. It also seems like it could attract the right developers to make quality freemium games in the living room.

The big picture is this: History has shown that great games don’t necessarily need specific platforms to exist. Facebook and Apple were both accidental gaming platforms that were responsible for two of biggest trends in gaming this decade: mobile and social. When the chips fall, the developers will go where the gamers are. This is why Microsoft is trying to make the Xbox a home entertainment console as opposed to a gaming console. As smartphones continue to penetrate the market globally, most people will soon be walking around with great games right in their pockets. While smart TVs and PCs will keep traditional gaming alive, mobile is poised to be the apex of the market.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Traditionally, console makers like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft aim for five- to seven-year cycles between consoles. A PlayStation 3 purchased 2006 for $500 still has some life in it, and chances are that we’ll see games for the platform for at least the next year or two.

Ouya’s yearly upgrade cycle means that the machine will become obsolete faster than traditional consoles. However, the Ouya will cost $99 at launch, which is far less than the traditional $300 to $500 consumers pay for a new system from Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. Furthermore, Ouya games will be backward compatible, says Uhrman. Players won’t have to worry about saying goodbye to their old game collections (digital, in this case). Ouya owners’ collections will also be tied to their account, so console upgrades are relatively painless — or at least that’s the plan.

Nvidia has also said that its Project Shield, another Android machine, will get yearly updates, signaling another company that’s changing of pace for the usual console update schedules.

Ouya and Shield are just two of the consoles that will serve as an alternative to traditional machines by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Consoles like the Piston (aka the rumored “Steam Box”) are also due for release before the end of the year, making for an increasingly cluttered market for alternative consoles.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the impending launch of the Ouya and the revelation of Nvidia’s “Project Shield” — two Android-based consoles aiming to rope in hardcore gamers by putting a controller in their hands to play mobile software — I’m left wondering if Android, as a platform, will begin suffering an identity crisis as to what type of games it’s best suited to produce.

Android started life firmly in the mobile-touch games camp, following the paradigm Apple set with iOS and the iPhone. By virtue of Android being a more open operating system, it naturally got pulled in multiple directions at once. Some Android games began taking on the look and feel of console titles, especially when Nvidia began sticking its Tegra chips in phones and tablets.

Games like Shadowgun, which really put some console-quality flair on Android thanks to Tegra 3, were fine to play on a touch screen, but they begged for a controller. A few niche products followed that demand, and some Android tablets supported the use of Sony’s PlayStation 3 DualShock controllers as well as some PC gamepads.

Ouya

Ouya, which was announced in 2012 and is due for launch in March, took the next logical step. It created a console box to run Android on your television and handed you its own proprietary controller for running the show.

Project Shield (not its final name, says Nvidia) builds a unified handheld gaming device with a screen that folds into what looks like a close cousin of an Xbox 360 controller. Powered by Nvidia’s newest powerhouse chip, Tegra 4, the handheld becomes its own console controller when you plug the device into your television.

With Tegra 4, Android platforms can build games that look like high-quality PC titles as evidenced by the recent Project Shield demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, which included a game demo of a mobile version of the PC mech shooter Hawken that didn’t appear to compromise much of the full experience. But these console or PC-quality games are going to appear on a platform largely regarded for distributing simple, touch-based mobile games.

Both Ouya and Project Shield address the presence of games with touch controls. Ouya’s controller has a built-in touch pad for players to input finger swipes and gestures during gameplay — the same as they would on a tablet or smartphone. Project Shield’s screen is, for all intents and purposes, a fully functioning 5-inch tablet, capable of running the full Android suite.

But that’s hardly the point.

Shadowgun

If I know one thing about the gaming public, it’s that it needs a product with a strong identity to get interested. Strong identities come via games people really want to play. I don’t see that on Android. It’s always been a little too ubiquitous for its own good, and this is a major obstacle in the games industry, where players and developers tend to put themselves in distinct camps and refuse to budge for long periods of time. Ask anyone who would love to play a console version of Diablo III about it.

I see Ouya and Project Shield as attempts to establish homes for Android gaming and, at the same time, bring it closer to the types of console/PC software to which hardcore gamers are attracted. I don’t know if it will work because the console-quality Android games — largely found in Nvidia’s TegraZone substore — are scant. It’s maybe worth giving the $99 Ouya a go, but Project Shield is a tougher sell if its price point gets too far above $199 (Nvidia hasn’t announced a firm price as of this writing).

More power to Ouya and Nvidia as they venture on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up with rough drafts in a larger plan to establish Android as a serious gaming platform.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

VentureBeat has emerged triumphant from CES 2013, with only one writer stricken with a mysterious convention illness. The past week went by like a whirlwind, but now that we have some time (and distance) away from Las Vegas, we can finally sit back and take a look at what worked best at this year’s show.

Fitbit Flex

Fitness gadget pioneer Fitbit came out swinging at CES this year, after being overshadowed by Jawbone and Nike’s wristbands. The $99 Fitbit Flex brings most of the company’s health tracking capabilities (sans stair counting) to a device that you can wear with you all day. The Flex makes Fitbit the most versatile health gadget company for consumers. If you don’t like wearing a wristband, you can always opt for the Fitbit One. I’ve found Fitbit’s data management to be the best of all the fitness gadgets, so I’m eager to put the Flex through its paces soon. – Devindra Hardawar

Fujifilm’s sleek X100S camera

While many hot new cameras debuted at CES, one really caught our attention. Fujifim’s X100S digital camera claims to have one of the world’s fastest autofocus on a camera at 0.08 seconds. The X100S is the successor to the well-regarded X100, with sales of 130,000 cameras worldwide since its launch. The outside of the X100S might have a retro look, but the inside is brimming with power. It features a 16.3-megapixel APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor and a fast EXR Processor II, both of which should ensure better noise reduction and all-around crisper photos. The X100S runs $1,300 and should be available in late March. — Sean Ludwig

Movea’s indoor smartphone location sensing

Movea showed off a way to use a phone’s existing sensors — an acclerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, Wi-Fi, and global-positioning system (GPS) satellite data. At the Las Vegas Hotel, Movea’s Dave Rothenberg showed me how his company created software that could calculate a route through the middle of the hotel, up the elevators to the sixth floor, and to the appropriate room.

Rothenberg’s Samsung Galaxy III smartphone showed the path the whole way, though it had to halt a couple of times to fix its bearings. As we rose in the elevator, Movea’s software figured out (using the pressure sensor in the Galaxy III) which floor we were on, and it prompted us to get off when we hit the sixth floor. The company retrieved the indoor map from the hotel’s own blueprints. The system does this in places where there is no GPS signal by estimating the length of your steps, given your height. This won’t work in uncontrolled environments yet, but indoor location isn’t so crazy an idea as phones become equipped with more and more sensors. – Dean Takahashi

Muse’s brain-bending headband

Muse’s Indiegogo-funded headband claims to measure your brain waves related to focus and relaxation. We had previously heard about Muse’s progress, but it was different seeing it in person. I tested it out, and as Muse claims, a program on a screen in front of you shows your brain activity in real time. As I focused more, the app onscreen showed more snow falling down, and as I relaxed more the sky turned clear. What was particularly revealing is that as I talked to different people, my brain activity levels changed, showing that some people engaged with me better than others. – Sean Ludwig

Oculus Rift makes virtual reality … a reality

The Oculus Rift VR headset is in prototype form and the final is expected to ship this March. But it already looks great. Once you put these bulky virtual reality googles on, it immerses you inside a gaming world. When you move your head, the imagery changes rapidly enough to match what you would expect in normal life. I donned the headset and walked around a medieval village built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. There was no lag between my movements and the changing imagery, and so I didn’t get motion sickness, as is common with many other virtual-reality headsets.

Some famous game developers such as id Software’s John Carmack and Valve’s Mike Abrash have expressed interest in this. If it gets support from game developers, it might be a really compelling shift in the you play games. For instance, you might hold a controller in your hand. But if you look down inside the game, you’ll see that you’re holding a sword. That adds to the illusion. You can control your movement with the controller, which is so intuitive for gamers so that they can use it without seeing their hands. This is one small step on the way to the virtual reality of the Star Trek Holodeck, where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. — Dean Takahashi

Pebble’s smartwatch is finally here

Yes, we love the Pebble smartwatch. It’s gone from a Kickstarter darling to a crowdfunding warning sign to a CES showstopper, all in less then a year. That’s a lot of drama for a watch that connects to your smartphone to display messages and control media.

Mostly, the Pebble’s popularity came from amped-up demand. There have been several attempts at smartwatches, but nobody’s yet managed to make a killer offering. (Apple came the closest with its watch-ready iPod Nano.) But with its simple design and monochrome display, the Pebble managed to capture geek hearts across the web. It makes sense for Pebble to choose CES as its official unveiling: Expect even more killer consumer tech startups to dominate the show in the future. (We’ve already seen quite a few this year.) – Devindra Hardawar

Project Shield: A crazy gamble on gaming hardware

Nvidia’s Project Shield could disrupt the console game business, where new titles typically cost $60. The Android-based portable gaming system lets you play high-quality, free-to-play Tegra Zone games on a 5-inch screen. You can also connect that machine via HDMI to a television and play games on a big screen. [Check out our hands-on video with Project Shield, as well as our exclusive interview with Nvidia's CEO.]

If Android games aren’t your taste, you can also play PC games that you have downloaded from Valve’s Steam digitial distribution service to your PC. And since Nvidia has invested heavily in its cloud-based GeForce Gaming Grid, you’ll be able to play cloud games on it too. The system is open, and you can expect a new model to debut every year. Nvidia is targeting hardcore gamers who want free-to-play games on their TVs.

It might be a narrow niche, given the crowded space. But Nvidia says the system is perfect for traveling people who want to access their own games from hotel rooms. You’ll be able to play any Android apps via the Shield, and you’re also have plenty of horsepower with the system’s Tegra 4 processor.  If this takes off, Nvidia will open up gaming and lower the cost of playing for consumers. – Dean Takahashi

Tegra 4 brings desktop power to mobile

Nvidia’s Tegra 4 mobile processor will be the brains of a new generation of mobile devices. It has 72 graphics cores, compared to just 12 on a Tegra 3. That isn’t nearly as many as the 3,072 on Nvidia’s top PC graphics chip, but the power consumption of Tegra 4 is far less than a desktop chip. Visually, this means you’ll be able to play high-definition games on a TV screen or a small screen with a Tegra 4-based mobile device. And if you have a 4K TV and 4K content, Tegra 4 will be able to run that too.

The chip has four microprocessor cores, plus a smaller core that operates in power-saving mode. The chip will be small since it will be built with a 28-nanometer manufacturing process. The new process also allows Nvidia to cut power consumption by as much as 45 percent.

Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs says the graphics in the Snapdragon 800 series will beat Nvidia’s, to which Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang replied, “Pretty brash words. We’ll see, I guess.” – Dean Takahashi

Qualcomm’s batshit insane keynote

At first I was bewildered by Qualcomm’s zany keynote, thanks to the trio of terrible actors pretending to be “born mobile” youths. Then I felt embarrassed for Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs when he was upstaged by Steve Ballmer. But eventually, I’ve come around to see this monstrous event as something truly wonderful. It may not have done much to encapsulate what Qualcomm is actually doing to innovate the mobile industry, but it sure was memorable.

How could you forget a keynote that featured cameos from Big Bird, film director Guillermo del Toro (who showed off some fun and gory clips from Blade II in 4K), a finale concert by Maroon 5, and a video message from Desmond Tutu. Indeed, Qualcomm’s CES keynote transcends description — and at one point, seemingly space and time. — Devindra Hardawar

Xi3′s Piston ‘Steam Box’

The Xi3 Piston is a cool modular computer, even if it isn’t exactly what Valve will launch with its Linux-based Steam Box. Rumors are rife that the Piston is indeed the living room game console that Valve will eventually launch. Valve has invested in Xi3, and Valve chief executive Gabe Newell confirmed that Valve is making its own open game machine.

The Xi3 Piston has a 3.2-GHz quad-core microprocessor and 384 programmable graphics cores. It comes with 8GB of DDR main memory. It can support three monitors natively and two mini-display ports, and it comes with 64 GB to 1TB of storage, depending on price. It has plenty of other ports, but the box remains tiny, modular, and upgradeable. Piston consumes only 40 watts, compared to 1,000 watts for some of the high-end game PCs. That means it doesn’t need a noisy fan, and you should be able to play kick-ass games on it. – Dean Takahashi

This week, Nvidia unveiled its new mobile gaming platform Project Shield, the itty-bitty Android console GameStick gets in trouble on Kickstarter, and developer and publisher THQ loses it quick sale request and loan in its ongoing bankruptcy negotiations.

You’ll also find reviews for Anarchy Reigns, Seduce Me, and Noble Nutlings.

News:
The DeanBeat: Nvidia is taking big risks moving into game hardware. Is it crazy or genius?
Skylanders toys outsell Transformers and Star Wars action figures in 2012
Wii U sells 890,000 units in U.S. in first six weeks
The top 10 best-selling games from all of 2012
December NPD: The Xbox 360 dominates another dull month at retail
New wave of Skylanders Giants action figures start hitting retailers
Will you buy this TCL TV for a new way to play Fruit Ninja?
The Walking Dead first-person shooter debuts in March
Kickstarter takes down GameStick project due to intellectual-property dispute (update)
Game developer association to Biden: ‘We welcome more evidence-based research’
GameStick will support the Xbox 360 controller-like Green Throttle Atlas
Entering the ‘free-to-play’ MechWarrior Tactics closed beta will cost you
Fantasy MMO Tera goes free-to-play
Planescape: Torment followup is set in new RPG world Numenera, and a Kickstarter is likely
Hanna writer attached to Shadow of the Colossus film
New Pokémon X and Y details: Legendary Pokémon named
Shaq is back in gaming with ShaqDown on smartphones
GameStick gets more colors and MicroSD support if backers meet new goals
American McGee sees brighter future for year-old Akaneiro: Demon Hunters on Kickstarter (updated)
GameStop’s holiday: Used sales down 15.6 percent, digital up 40 percent
Big Fish’s casual cloud-gaming service headed to Windows 8, brings Xbox Live Achievements
Imprisoned Arma II developer helping DayZ map design from behind bars
THQ equity backer agrees to hear bids for individual titles (update)
DayZ standalone entering prerelease testing soon
Lenovo and Ubisoft deliver cool touch-screen games on giant 27-inch Table PC
THQ denied request for quick bankruptcy sale and loan

Mobile News:
Balrogs! Kabam can’t keep #11 top grossing iOS game The Hobbit live tonight
Point this app at your TV screen and it overlays all kinds of augmented-reality goodies
Mobile-ad platform Chartboost raises $19 million to fund further product development
Moga unveils a console-style mobile-gaming controller
Nvidia unveils Project Shield, an open mobile game console you can play in the living room or on the run

Interviews:
Nvidia CEO’s 7-year journey to make the Project Shield portable gaming device (exclusive interview)

Previews:
Nvidia’s Project Shield: Hands-on demo with the hot portable gaming system of CES (video)
Razer wants to satisfy gamer lust for tablets with the Edge (hands-on video)

Community Spotlight:
Save me: The symbolism of Silent Hill’s save points
The music industry took too long to recognize game music as worthy of the Grammy
Saying farewell to the PlayStation 2 (2000-2012)
Japanese role-playing games on major consoles are dead
The Buddhist teaches players that goals aren’t always necessary
Video games, violence, and religious identity

Reviews:
Anarchy Reigns is the digital version of a big box of mismatched toys (review)
Noble Nutlings is a safe debut from three former Angry Birds developers (review)
Seduce Me makes sex seem really boring (review)

Pieces of Flair:
If Mega Man had a dating site profile
8 button prompts we would like to have seen
10 female characters not featured in their game’s cover (and 10 that are)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Jen-Hsun Huang has thought about making Project Shield, the portable Android gaming system that Nvidia unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, for the past seven years. But the chief executive of the world’s biggest graphics chip maker had to pull a lot of things together first before deciding to make it — like figuring out how to make a gaming console.

Nvidia designs chips such as the Tegra 4 inside the Project Shield, but it’s never gone directly into the consumer market with its own game system. (It did go out on its own into the retail market before with its 3DVision 3D glasses in the past). Nvidia has also worked to establish a cloud gaming network dubbed the Nvidia GeForce Gaming Grid, which provides the underlying foundation for delivering games to the Shield device, which includes a 5-inch screen atop a game controller. Then it designed a new kind of processing for its latest graphics chips. And in the past year, it put the finishing touches on its Tegra 4 mobile processor, which has four computing cores and 72 graphics cores.

It would be wrong to think that Shield is just another Android game controller. It has a whole ecosystem built around it and high-end components for hardcore gamers. In short, Project Shield is a massive effort that required the work of thousands of Nvidia employees. Now, it’s finally ready, and Huang showed Project Shield to us in an interview at the Nvidia booth at CES. (See our hands-on vide0). Here’s an edited transcript of our exclusive interview.

GamesBeat: How heavy is it? A pound or so?

Jen-Hsun Huang: Here you go. It’s under a pound. A bit under a pound.

GamesBeat: It feels like a regular Xbox controller. 

Huang: Exactly. That’s ideal. We haven’t tuned any of the knobs on this, or the buttons, but ideally it should respond just like one. The moment you pick it up, you should recognize it as a controller.

There are two things that we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that for anybody who picks it up, and in the moment that they do, they’re instantly familiar with it. All the controls are exactly where they expected. Secondly, because it’s pure Android, you know exactly how to use it. Because this is pure Android. If you’re an Android user — and this is targeting Android users — the moment that you turn it on, your whole life shows up. All your music is there. All your movies are there. All the Tegra Zone games you’ve already bought on your phone are there.

GamesBeat: What are some of the reactions you’ve heard so far? 

Huang: I would say that the No. 1 reaction is, “Wow, it’s a lot smaller than I expected.”

GamesBeat: What design decisions can you talk about? You could probably have just had a tablet sitting on top of something that you could attach, taking the controller away. I think I’ve seen other designs like that out there already. Is there a reason not to do that?

Huang: First of all, a tablet is too heavy. It’s too top-heavy. Second, notice that this isn’t a tablet. It’s just a display. All of the electronics, the batteries, are in here. The balance of the system wants to be in your hand. Even a phone is too top-heavy. Worse, you don’t want to drain the battery life of your phone. Your phone is used for communication. The benefit of using Android is that all of the content on your tablet or your phone automatically shows up here. The instant familiarity of the system is a real plus. The connection to your open system, with all of your digital content, is a plus.

The design decisions started with this. It has to be a wonderful gaming device. The controller can’t be sacrificed. We started with the palms of your hands, how everything fit into your hand — the bumpers, the triggers, the buttons. They have to be in the appropriate places. Then we fit all of the technology around it. That’s No. 1. No. 2, it has to be as small as possible, to the point where the volume of this device is approximately a game controller. The reason for that is because if you’re willing to carry a game controller in your bag, then from a volume perspective, you want to carry this in your bag. The third thing, of course, is that the performance has to be amazing.

And then, the magic trick … as a device that is consistent with the way we expect to consume media in the future — wireless, cloud, streaming — those kinds of experiences have to be introduced. Streaming from your PC. We do streaming to your TV. In the future we’ll do streaming from Grid. Not only is this a wonderful game device, but it’s also gaming in a new way, the way that we expect to consume digital content.

GamesBeat: Are you filtering Android content in some ways so that it works with this?

Huang: No, not at all. This is pure Android.

GamesBeat: Some of those games are designed more for touch, though, as opposed to buttons. How does that convert?

Huang: The way we’ll do it is this. Everything will work. But for games that are designed for controllers and also optimized for Shield, we have the Tegra Zone. All of your games in here just work. This is your Android experience. Everything is there. This is your gaming experience. Tegra Zone pops up. You’re playing your games. If, all of a sudden, you got a text and you want to check it out, and if you want to go back to that game, it’s exactly like Android. The behavior is exactly the same if you’re connected to the PC.

GamesBeat: How much of the hard work focuses not just on this but also in the whole ecosystem around it? Like, for a console maker, they have to go round up all the game publishers and game developers to get behind a console some months or years ahead of time.  

Huang: We are perpetually doing that. You know that we work with game developers all over the world to enhance for GeForce or to optimize for Tegra. All of the optimizations that we made for Tegra are in Tegra Zone, and all of those games just showed up. For the last two years, all of the games that we’ve optimized for Tegra have already included controller support. We’ve been preparing for this day. All of those games, the 100 games or so, and the few hundred games in development right now, they’re all being optimized for this.

GamesBeat: How much of this resembles a console business and how much might be different or disruptive to it?

Huang: It’s completely different. That’s a really good question. We’re not trying to build a console. We’re trying to build an Android digital device, in the same way that Nexus 7 enjoys books and magazines and movies. This is an Android device for enjoying games. It’s part of your collection of Android devices. That’s how we think about this device. All of the economics associated with this device are exactly the same. We’re going to have to sell this device based on the value of this device, for people who are enjoying it and finding it useful.

The differences are this. The console, as you know, is proprietary, it’s closed, and it has a razor-and-blades business model. Our business model is open, it’s based on Android, it’s completely familiar to you, and the games range from free to free-to-play with virtual goods and also, of course, to premium games. This is the perfect platform for free-to-play. The free-to-play publisher wants to get their games on as many platforms as possible. Broad distribution is what they’re looking for. Broad distribution isn’t what the console guys are looking for. They’re looking for exclusivity. For us, this is just a fantastic thing we’re doing for that industry. That’s why free-to-play works great for PCs. Free-to-play is going to work great for Android, and if it works great for Android it’s going to work even better for Shield.

GamesBeat: What was going on in your heads during all of this time? People were saying that free-to-play was disrupting everything on Facebook, for instance, or iOS. They said that somebody had to bring this to the consoles and disrupt those $60-dollar console games, but nobody did it. Then things like Ouya started popping up. It seemed like it was taking startups to do something the established companies wouldn’t. You guys are an established company in different ways, partnering with some of those guys. What was your thinking when the opportunity for something like this came up?

Huang: If you talk to Julie at Ouya, she’ll tell you that her best partner in the world is Nvidia. We have hundreds of engineers working on her behalf to realize that game console. We love what they’re doing. But I frankly think that Ouya and that game console could be made by other companies aside from us. We can do it, but other companies can do it too. The reason why I built this device is because only we can build this device.

This device, Shield, has such incredible performance. It’s got the software stack that treats it like a server to stream to television. It treats it like a receiver for servers in the cloud and on your PC. The software that’s necessary to do that is so complicated. No company in the world is going to get it together. We’re going to have to do this. It’s the same technology that I was going to use for GRID anyway. The GRID technology goes into my PC. My PC now becomes a GRID server for this. I put that same technology in Shield. Now Shield becomes a GRID server for television. I’ve got all the technology that I can leverage. It’s very delicate and complicated technology, because it has to work, but it also has to work with very low latency.

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Nvidia’s Project Shield portable gaming system is one of the cool new technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang positioned the device as disruptive for the video game business because it makes free-to-play Android games available on both a handheld and on your TV.

Not many have had a peek at this Android-based device that combines a traditional Xbox-like game controller with a 5-inch display and Android games. The system can work as a handheld game player, or you can hook it up via a HDMI cable to your TV. Since the system has an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor in it, it can render the games so they look beautiful on a larger screen.

You can also play your games from the Steam network on your PC with Project Shield. That means you can use the controller to fire up a PC game on Steam, and then play that game on your TV or computer display. Both Steam and Project Shield are open, so it’s easy to do. Nvidia says the Project Shield should be out in the second quarter for an undisclosed price.

The device has industry-standard input-output ports, including HDMI, micro-USB, and other slots. It also has a customizable tag. The controller-display system weighs a little less than a pound. That is somewhat heavy, but it packs a lot of electronics in it. It feels good in your hands. And the weight is more in the base, which you can rest on your lap while you play. The display is light, since you don’t want it to tip over the system.

We got a good look at the system today at Nvidia’s booth, where we were briefed by Ujesh Desai of Nvidia for a demo of Project Shield. Check out our hands-on demo video below. Desai noted that the system is in prototype form still.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang announced something that looked pretty awesome tonight. He unveiled Project Shield, an Android tablet computer running Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 processor, accompanied by a game controller designed for hardcore gaming fans.

It’s like a miniature game console that you can carry with you. The Shield is attached directly to the game console that comes with it, so you can carry both devices around easily. You can then attach the Shield via an HDMI cable to your high-definition tablet. And you can then play Android games on a television with a big screen.

In an event at the Rain nightclub in the Palms hotel in Las Vegas on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Huang showed it working with an LG TV with 4K Ultra HD resolution, or 4K by 2K, or four times as much detail as a 1080p HD TV.

Nvidia designed the entertainment device around its Tegra 4 processor, so that you can enjoy it either as a mobile gaming device or a living room game console.

Huang emphasized that one of the prime benefits of the Shield system is that it is open, accessing games on the Android store or the PC. The device has industry-standard input-output ports, including HDMI, micro-USB, and other slots. It also has a customizable tag.

“This is the first time you can see a 4K video coming off of a mobile device,” Huang said, as he played a video from the Android device on the big-screen TV.

The console can play games on Nvidia’s TegraZone site for Android games. Even better, it can play a game that is stored on a PC. You can use the Project Shield game controller to play the game, which then can be streamed to your big-screen TV. Now that’s pretty cool.

“This is the culmination of five years of work,” Huang said. “You can enjoy it on the small display or enjoy the same game on your television.”

Huang showed demos of games such as the newest Need for Speed and Assassin’s Creed III, being played with the Shield controller via the PC, which streamed the game images to the TV.

Huang also showed Shield working with games on Valve’s Steam network, accessible via the  PC. Huang said that Shield will be able to access cloud games via Nvidia’s Grid Gaming System.

“It allows us to enjoy any game on any device on any screen,” he said. “This is untethered gaming.”

After the press event was over, the party started. An Nvidia executive told me that the company itself will make and sell the Shield. It will probably launch the device in the second quarter, with pricing to be determined.

Check out some videos from the event below.

IMAG2658 from VentureBeat on Vimeo.

IMAG2657 from VentureBeat on Vimeo.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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