There was quite a buzz about this product on the day it was introduced, but as we all know time moves differently for gaming devices especially when you are talking about the internet. A couple of months is like a lifetime to many gamers who are looking for the next big thing the day they buy their hardware. On top of this mobile gaming is not what it was in early-mid 2012 and appears to be declining as people prepare for the launch of the next generation of consoles. Devices like the PS Vita and the Wii U are not selling as well as they should be. In some cases this is due to a lack of good gaming content but in others the slump has more to do with screen size and resolution than anything else.

nVidia sought to fix more than one of these issues with Shield and included a 5-inch 720p display along the ability to connect to larger screens. To fix the content issue they are allowing Shield owners to access games from the Google Play store, the Tegra Zone and also to stream games running on their PCs (as long as they have GeForce GTX cards). From there they are working on bringing even more PC games to Shield though streaming.

For those of you that have been waiting for this you might be getting closer to getting one in your hand. nVidia has announced that they are going to be opening up for a limited number of pre-orders whith an anticipated ship date in June. This first round is only open to people who signed up to the order site early. The rest of us will have to wait until May 20th before we can get ours. The price tag on the Shield is $349.99 which might be a little bit more than most people are going willing to pay for a mobile gaming platform.

So, nVidia is finally taking pre-orders for Shield and working to build interest in the product again, but we still have to wonder if they might have missed their optimal launch date for this product. We just cannot see this being a “must have” product when the next generation Xbox and Playstation are right around the corner.

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