I don’t know about you, but my first thought upon seeing Nvidia’s new Shield handheld gaming console was as follows:
Plenty of other folks took the joke one step further, drawing quick comparisons to the failed Nokia N-Gage, the little portable video game system that couldn’t.
Of course, there are plenty of differences between the Shield and the N-Gage. The N-Gage ran its own games, and it was something of a piece of junk. The Shield has a big pre-existing library, appears to be at least mostly well-designed, and has built-in Steam functionality. Still, there must be a reason so many people jumped to make the comparison.
Will the Shield wind up being just another N-Gage? Or will its Steam integration and greater existing library make it something more? Mike’s put together a great round-up of the possible pros and cons of the system.
In the meantime, if you are jumping out there to make the N-Gage comparison, well, you’re not alone.
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