Nvidia Cuts Shield Price to $299 Before June 27 Launch
Nvidia today announced that it will drop the price of its upcoming Shield portable gaming system from $349 to $299.
"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," Nvidia said in a Thursday blog post.
Those who have pre-ordered the device, which is set to arrive on June 27, will be charged $299 when the Shield ships.
In examining the Shield during a recent hands on, PCMag's Sascha Segan found it to be an "interesting" device. "But with Tegra Zone games and Android-powered entertainment also available on a range of Android smartphones, I just don't see the additional $349 purchase happening here," he concluded.
Nvidia heard that call, and dropped the price - in part "to get Shield into the hands of as many gamers as possible," the company said. "That's because we think they'll have the same reaction to it as thousands of gamers already have: joy."
The Shield made a splash at this year's CES, when it debuted as Project Shield. It is the first flagship device for Nvidia's new Tegra 4 chipset, and includes a 5-inch, 720p touch screen in its top half. The bottom half is all gaming controller: two analog sticks, a D-pad, buttons and bumpers. On the back, you'll find an HDMI port and MicroSD slot. The device connects to the Internet with Wi-Fi, and has enough battery life to play games for 5-10 hours or show HD video for 24 hours.
But the gaming space is crowded. Sony and Microsoft are gearing up to release their next-gen consoles later this year, while smaller, Android-based gaming options from the likes of Ouya, PlayJam, and GamePop are on the way, and the Windows-based Razer Edge Pro is already on store shelves.
Microsoft apparently felt that pressure this week. Yesterday, it backtracked on plans to require an online connection for the Xbox One , and softened its stance on used games. For more on that, see Microsoft Does the Right Thing and Fixes the Xbox One.
Check out our hands-on video with the Shield below, as well as our first look at Shield from CES.
