NVIDIA has revealed the Grid game streaming service, that is now available on the NVIDIA Shield and Shield Tablet. This service, which is similar to Sony’s PlayStation Now, will allow users to play games without actually downloading anything. It is also massive boost for the Shield devices that require the presence of a computer to stream from for PC games.
Grid has been stocked with several games for players to try out the streaming capabilities on. Batman: Arkham City, Borderlands 2, and Darksiders 2 are all being hosted on the NVIDIA Grid servers. Players will need a fast internet connection to actually take advantage of this, with the FAQ suggesting a minimum of 10Mbps. Not everyone will be able to access these speeds, although one cannot argue with it as streaming games requires a better connection that just watching movies or listening to music.
The service is currently free until June 2015 for everyone; although this actually means everyone in North America as both Europe and Asia will not be seeing it until later next year. NVIDIA had no comment about whether Grid would be available for the PC as well, although it should be safe to say that this is likely to happen.
NVIDIA also announced that the Shield Tablet would also be getting an OS update to the new Android 5.0 Lollipop; which comes as a pleasant surprise considering how quickly it was announced. In addition to this, five more PC games have been added to the list of those playable directly on the Shield.
Half Life 2: Episode 1 is the biggest title, which is no surprise as Half Life 2 is already available for the Shield and Valve has been pushing for more platforms. Also arriving on the Shield is Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, Pure Pool, Strike Suit Zero, and Turbo Dismount.
[Source: NVIDIA]
