Nividia Corp. the largest make of graphics card chips on the market for personal computers announced Thursday that it will be cutting the price of its SHIELD hand-held gaming device from $349 to $299.
The company made the announcement on their blog Thursday saying, since the initially unveiled the product back in January, they've been taking user feedback heavily into consideration.
"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," the company said on its blog. Users who have already pre-ordered the SHIELD will only be charged the new, lower price of the device when it is finally shipped to them after the device is made available to consumers on June 27, a date Nividia also confirmed in Thursdays blog post announcement.
The SHIELD has been making its rounds throughout the gaming community for months, being featured at the Consumer Electronics Show, PAX East and E3.
The handset sports a five-inch 720p HD screen, runs on the latest Android OS and is powered by the company's Tegra processor. In an interview, Nividia's chief executive officer Jen-Hsun Huang said the company hopes to boost the sales of other devices using the Tegra processor by increasing the use of games designed for the platform, according to Bloomberg.
The device has been available for pre-order for about a month. It offers its users all the comfort of a handheld device with the style and feel of a high-end gaming console controller. It can run applications like Facebook, Hulu Plus and Twitter as well as play popular console-quality titles like "Borderlands 2" and "Sonic 4 Episode 2." Through the PC Game streaming service, which is being launched as a beta, users can play their favorite PC titles as well.
Below is a video, which explains some of the finer points about the Nvidia SHIELD. The video was released to go along with the announcement of pre-orders and thus still mentions the unit's old price tag.
