The new Nvidia Shield is the 'world's first 4K Android TV console' for $199

Nvidia just announced an Android gaming console. The latest Shield (previous entries include a gaming tablet and before that an all-in-one game controller plus screen) is the "world's first 4K Android TV console." The device itself is thin and sports the familiar sharp design aesthetic (with green glow). It supports decoded 4K video at 60Hz. The Shield will launch in May for $199, game controller included, alongside the company's new Grid game-streaming service.

The non-gaming bluetooth remote ("Shield remote") looks is fairly minimal and features a "one click, one touch voice search" (à la Amazon's Fire TV remote) and a headset jack for listening quietly (à la Roku remotes).

Nvidia's home console is powered by its Tegra X1, its new mobile "superchip" announced in January. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is touting just how much more powerful this Shield is compared to current set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV — but it's also about twice the performance of the Xbox 360 at half the power output.

And of course, it plays games. Nvidia Shield will have its own store, and at the time of launch there'll be over 50 games curated, according to Huang.

From the on-stage demo, we see Portal, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Multiple developers have taken the stage to show support and live demos, including Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchfork (for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, running at 30fps), id's Tim 

Willits (Doom 3 BFG edition), and Crytek's Cevat Yerli (Crysis 3 at 30fps — "yes, it can run Crysis," Huang keeps reminding us).

and it will play the witcher 3 in 4k

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been delayed!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developer CD Projekt Red has pushed back the game's release to May 19, 2015, the studio announced today.

The new date represents a delay of three months — CD Projekt Red had said in June that it planned to launch The Witcher 3 on Feb. 24, 2015. That announcement followed the news in March that the studio had pushed back the game into February 2015 from its original launch window of late 2014.

"We owe you an apology. We set the release date too hastily," said the board of CD Projekt today, in an open letter posted on the website for The Witcher.

"It's a hard lesson, one to take to heart for the future. We know what we want to do to makeWild Hunt one of the best RPGs you will ever play. And we continue to work hard to achieve just that. So, we apologize and ask for your trust."

CD Projekt cited a desire to "limit any bugs" as one of the main reasons for delaying The Witcher 3, along with "the sheer size and complexity" of the game.

"Now, nearing the end of our work, we see many details that need to be corrected. When we release the most important game in our studio's history, we must be absolutely sure that we did everything we could to limit any bugs to a level that will allow you to enjoy the game thoroughly," said CD Projekt. "With this in mind, we took another look at current workloads and what they mean for the team. Even though everyone is working at full speed, we concluded that we need another 12 weeks."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be receiving sixteen! DLC packages

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be receiving sixteen! DLC packages, free of charge across all platforms.

Marcin Iwiński, CEO of Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt RED, has penned a rallying, pro-consumer statement around the announcement.

"As gamers, we nowadays have to hold on tight to our wallets, as surprisingly right after release, lots of tiny pieces of tempting content materialize with a steep price tag attached," said Iwiński. "Haven’t we just paid a lot of cash for a brand new game?

"As CD PROJEKT RED, we strongly believe this is not the way it should work and, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, we have decided to do it differently. Cutting to the chase, everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform. You don’t have to pre-order, you don’t have to buy any special edition to get them -- if you own a copy of Wild Hunt, they’re yours. This is our way of saying thank you for buying our game."

Official Witcher 3 logo revealed

Independent Polish developer CD Projekt Red today revealed new logos for upcoming role-playing game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and for the studio itself.

The game's logo focuses on the mask of general Eredin, a leader of the titular Wild Hunt. What exactly is the Wild Hunt? Conveniently, CD Projekt Red also shed some light on that today. Here's how the developer goes about describing things:

"The Wild Hunt has always been thought to presage war, great plagues and death. Their origin unknown, these ghastly riders instilled fear in the hearts of men and are believed to be able to steal people’s spirits that would later join the cavalcade. They come at night, in the winter and their appearance is always preceded by the aurora borealis.

In The Witcher 3, the Wild Hunt are not mere bosses at the end of a corridor. They’re part of the lore, part of the system of folk beliefs, they’re both something that children say stories about to scare each other and an entity that can wipe out entire villages in one night. The Wild Hunt is essential to the whole Witcher universe and in The Witcher 3 it will finally take center stage.

The ones who command the Hunt remain a mystery even bigger than the Hunt itself. Their number and purpose are shrouded with mystery, their cold steel however is not--many have witnessed the Hunt’s atrocities, almost none survived to tell the tale."

As for CD Projekt Red's new logo, the company is updating it in a major way for the first time since the developer was established in 2002. The new "REDbird" logo is described thusly by CD Projekt Red studio head Adam Badowski:




"We are rebels and rebels are free. Just like birds. The Northern Cardinal, or REDbird, is what we see ourselves in the industry: intrepid, bold and confident; flying high and aiming even higher. The color, cardinal RED, is something that connects it with another bird, a mythological creature close to our cultural roots and heritage—the Rarog, a small firebird believed to bring luck to people. RED stands for energy, the inner fire that drives us; it represents something very close to everyone here in the studio—the creativity and passion we harness from within ourselves to make the best RPGs in the world."