NVIDIA Drops Price of Shield to $300; Shipping June 27th

[dgstorm]

Here is some welcome news for folks who pre-ordered or were simply considering purchasing the new NVIDIA Shield portable gaming device. They dropped the price from $349.99 to $299.99, and announced the official ship date of June 27th! How's that for great news to chase away the Thursday morning blahs?

Of course, the Shield obviously still has an uphill battle ahead of it. With the new Sony PS4 and Xbox One consoles set to hit retail shelves later this year, the Shield might be hard-pressed to compete for the average family's gaming dollar. Still, for folks who don't mind spending the money for a bunch of devices, or if you are only interested in the portability options afforded by the Shield, then this price drop is very good news. It's also pretty exciting to think we will be able to get one in just a week!

Here's NVIDIA's full presser,

A new kind of open gaming device needs a new kind of development process.

Rather than being secretive about SHIELD and what it can do, we decided to bring gamers in on the conspiracy, announcing our plan to bring a portable gaming device with console-class controls and a high-def 5-inch screen to market in January at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Most of all, we wanted this device to be open and provide the best possible experience—whether you’re playing Android or PC games, or enjoying your favorite movies, music, and other apps on the go.

Since then, we’ve put SHIELD in the hands of thousands of gamers. Some have been professional press. Others have been inside our own company. But most have been people like the tens of thousands who streamed through our booth at PAX East and E3.

And their reactions have been more than just positive.

They’ve helped us build a better product. Feedback from gamers is why SHIELD’s triggers have the perfect throw length. Why SHIELD’s buttons have just the right amount of give. Why SHIELD’s thumb sticks are so satisfying to flick. Why playing games on SHIELD’s pure Android software feels so slick.

The result: while SHIELD isn’t available until June 27th – we’re making that official today – it’s already grabbed awards by the fistful – including dozens of ‘Best of Show’ awards at CES, Computex and E3.

Now it’s time for one more change.

We’ve heard from thousands of gamers that if the price was $299, we’d have a home run.

So we’re changing the price of SHIELD to $299.

If you’ve already pre-ordered SHIELD, you’ll be charged the new, lower price. You will only be charged $299 when the product ships.

We want to get SHIELD into the hands of as many gamers as possible.

That’s because we think they’ll have the same reaction to it as thousands of gamers already have: joy.

Source: SHIELD Gets Final Touch Before Its Release ? a Better Price

 

[johnomaz]

This thing still pulls at my game strings. I want it for the steam streaming but I would have to upgrade my video card to a 600 series card (which isn't a bad thing, love me some component upgrading...) but I don't have the money for both. Plus, it looks so damn good!

 

[Vepaot]

I want one but it'll need to have some sort of onscreen button configuration software like Sixaxis has to emulate touchscreen presses with actual button presses.

Otherwise the amount of games you will be able to play on it will be rather limited. Unless Nvidia is already in partnership with game studios to create controller based Android games, then maybe things like Shield and the Ouya will really help push the Android gaming industry ahead of iOS.

 

[liftedplane]

I just recently made the jump from AMD to Nvidia and got a 660ti... now I really really want to get this just so I can stream my steam games and hopefully others in the future, when I'm not home.

decisions decisions.