Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/119349
n n n n Gaming Is the new project shield disruptive technology or just a Grid peripheral? By Jon Peddie P roject Shield, Nvidia's Android Tegra game controller with a screen, is striking when first seen. However, the configuration is not novel. Game controllers that hold a mobile phone or a tablet have been available for a while. Project Shield consists of a console-like game controller with a dedicated and permanently attached five-inch, 720p multi-touch display, powered by Nvidia's latest ARM-based processor, Tegra 4, running Google's Jellybean version of Android. It is an appealing product and irresistible to pick up. But is that enough to make it disruptive? Mobile phones certainly existed before Apple introduced the iPhone, yet not many would dispute that it was a transformational and disruptive product – but was it? In Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 best-selling book The Innovator's Dilemma, he separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application. The description of "disruptive" hardly fits Nvidia's Project Shield, or the iPhone for that matter. It is doubtful that Project Shield will have many, if any, performance problems any more than any new product does, including the iPhone. It may have a limited audience, namely game players, but there are about 30 million of them (hard-core gamers for all platforms approach 300 million), and so it is a matter of scale when making the determination of "limited." In addition, the iPhone and Project Shield certainly have proven practical applications. 20 March/April 2013 CGW0313-Game Devicespfin.indd 20 3/14/13 12:14 PM