Based on a workshop scheduled to take place at GDC 2011 next week, Nvidia will be instructing developers on how to port PC games and console titles to the Android platform powered by the Tegra processor. The workshop will be presented by Nvidia's Mobile Developer Technologies Engineer Lars Bishop and Playbox Limited Technical Director Mike Clarke.
"Learn about porting games from PC and console to Android," reads the description. "Hear an honest and open discussion from Playbox on porting from PS3 to Tegra-Android. See Nvidia's latest Android debugging and analysis tools. For those really paying attention, there's even be a shot at walking away with a Tegra of your own!"
The news follows previous reports that the GPU giant had joined Microsoft in resigning from the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA). Neither company offered a reason for their departure. However, PCGA president Matt Ployhar said in a blog post that the alliance was shifting away from serving as a research group and will play more of an active role in assisting developers, publishers and hardware companies to make better PC games.
Nvidia's departure from the PCGA seemingly indicates its primary focus on the Tegra platform, notably the upcoming Kal-El SoC which promises five times the performance than what's currently offered on the dual-core Tegra 2 processor. Stark, which will supposedly launch in 2014 if Nvidia can stick with its Tegra-upgrade-per-year roadmap, will be 100 times faster than the existing Tegra SoC. By then, the line between desktop and mobile device may begin to blur.
The latest device to use Nvidia's Tegra 2 SoC is the Motorola XOOM tablet, launched Thursday on Verizon Wireless. The tablet is powered by Google's Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" OS, and retails for $599.99 subsidized and $799.99 unsubsidized..
