Way back when NVIDIA first showed off Shield to the world, the question on everyone’s mind was “how much is this thing going to cost?”. While NVIDIA make graphics cards for pretty much every segment, you have to spend a lot to get some decent performance when it comes to high-end gaming, this I can attest to as the card in my PC was one of the most expensive components in my PC – if not the most. There’s no denying that the Shield is an impressive piece of hardware, which is certain to deliver the best performance when it comes to Android gaming. Add in the whole thing about being able to stream your Steam games on here and you have one hell of an advanced handheld games console.
When the company finally priced the device and detailed when it would be on shelves, we weren’t exactly shocked at the $349 price tag but, we were unsure of how well it would do at retail. So too, were NVIDIA it would seem, as they’ve come out today and officially lowered the price of the console to $299. That might not be much of a drop but, it’s sub-$300 which is the max for a lot of people. When you consider that $399 will get you a PS4 this fall, the $349 price tag didn’t look so hot as E3 came to a close.
NVIDIA have also finalized release dates and availability too, with the device officially being available June 27th. If you’ve forgotten what makes the Shield so special, we’ll give you a little refresher. There are a whole host of physical controls, that wouldn’t look out-of-place in front of the TV, a 5-inch 720p display and the star of the show, the Tegra 4. In fact, the Tegra 4 – with its quad-core Cortex A15 CPU – is air-cooled in this beast, with an exhaust at the back of the device.
Those that have already pre-ordered the device will only be charged $299 when the device ships – so any way you look at it, we’re all saving $50, and that’s just gravy.