NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 19 March 2013

In this Issue:

· Tegra 4, Tegra 4i and Project SHIELD receive praise from leading analyst firms.

· Agawi and NVIDIA deliver a plug and play solution to bring cloud gaming to cable and telco companies.

· NVIDIA's Ujesh Desia talks about the future of gaming at the Engadget Expand event.

· Tegrazone delivers two new games with stunning visual quality in The Conduit HD and Real Boxing.

Tegra 4 And Friends Get Much Love

Tegra 4 and its related products continue to receive praise from the analyst community. Leading analyst firm The Lindley Group indicated that Tegra 4 will be the best perform among the upcoming crop of mobile processors.

"This performance takes aim at Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon processors. NVIDIA offered a wide range of benchmark results that clearly showed Tegra 4 leading both the APQ8064 and (judging from our estimates) the forthcoming Snapdragon 800," he said. "Based on these estimates, even Qualcomm's best processor, which is due to enter production at about the same time as Tegra 4, won't surpass NVIDIA in these tests."

Market research firm Forward Concepts also named Tegra 4i one of the most impressive LTE modem demos at Mobile World Congress.

"NVIDIA impressed me with its Tegra 4i, perhaps one of only two LTE com-processors on a single die (and demonstrated in a real cellphone at the show)...and with its associated RF transceiver. "

Microprocessor Report says the Tegra 4i will be an important one for NVIDIA.

"This situation should give Tegra 4i an advantage in mainstream phones. The Tegra 4i die is about half the size of the 8974, making it difficult for Qualcomm to compete on price using this die. The company may be able to develop a cost-reduced quad-core chip by the time Tegra 4i is available, or perhaps shortly thereafter, but such a chip may fail to match Tegra 4i's performance."

Tegra 4 -based products like Project SHIELD are reaping the benefit of Tegra 4's elegance, leading IDC's Lewis Ward to say:

"The device itself is a technical tour de force."

NVIDIA Lets Telcos Take To the Cloud

Agawi unveiled a new product, code named VG36, specifically designed to enable cable and telecommunications companies to easily tap into video games as a source of entertainment content on a large scale.

"Everybody has been waiting for MNVOs, MSOs, the telecom guys, the cable guys, to bring new services to market," he said. "They offer voice, they offer Internet, they offer television, so what's the next big content area? Gaming. Almost all the major telecom operators and cable operators want to do trials this year with introducing gaming services, and the easiest way to bring them to market is through cloud gaming, because the alternative is to put the equivalent of an iPad inside their set-top box."

VG36 leverages the breakthrough scalability and performance of NVIDIA GRID appliances, creating a "plug and play" solution that allows cable and telecom operators to increase monthly revenue per user by offering millions of gamers a portfolio of social, mid-core and core games.

Ujesh Talks the Future of Gaming with Engadget

Engadget Expand is a brand new event designed for technology fans and they held their inaugural event in San Francisco March 16 and 17. The event give attendees the opportunity to hear from your favorite consumer electronics luminaries on stage, talk directly with Engadget editors, and get your hands on some of the latest and greatest new devices at our show floor exhibition.

NVIDIA's Ujesh Desia was a guest speaker on the Gaming's New Frontiers panel
"Everyone seems to be in agreement here: PC gaming is moving away from the desktop, and into living rooms, mobile devices and more. Or, at the very least, their products give gamers the option to do so."

Check out the Live Blog for a complete rundown.

Console Quality Gaming Goes Mobile

There's been a lot of talk about bringing console-quality gaming to mobile devices and the latest two games to hit TegraZone for Tegra 3-powered devices such as the Nexus 7 and HTC One X+ sure push the envelope. Press got their hands on The Conduit HD and Real Boxing and can't stop raving about the visual quality, pointing out that The Conduit HD is, "bringing console-quality graphics and big guns right to your mobile." Real Boxing jumps in the ring as well, being hailed as taking, "mobile graphics to the next level with extremely detailed character models and gorgeous HD visuals."

The processing power of Tegra is catching some great praise as well:

"The game is sharper and crisper on Tegra - the textures really pop."

"Being a Tegra-optimized game, the graphics obviously look notably better than if it were running on another device."

"NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core processor and mobile gaming is truly ready to take on consoles."

"The best part is the graphics have been given a bump between the original Wii version and here with NVIDIA's Tegra SoC."