We are only a few weeks away from the release of Nvidia's new Shield platform. To keep current Shield Tablet and Portable users happy in the meantime, the company promised to continue to update the games library on GRID, the cloud service used to stream games to Shield players. This week, Nvidia added three new titles and reduced game latency in certain areas with the completion of a new data center.
With Shield, latency is a big issue when games are streamed to the device. To curtail the issue, Nvidia announced the opening of a new data center located in California called USA South West. As the name suggests, it covers the Southwest region of the United States. With Shield devices in the area connected to a closer data center, players should experience reduced latency.
Two other data centers are located in Oregon and Virginia, and according to Nvidia, together these three data centers cover the continental United States. However, the company stated that there is room for further expansion, and future data center plans will be announced at a later date. You can check your ping time and tell which data center you're connected to by accessing the Shield Hub Settings and then pressing the Service Location tab.
With these data centers, Nvidia hopes streaming lag is significantly reduced so that players can enjoy the current games on GRID as well as the latest additions. New titles include Strider, the side-scrolling action game based on the classic arcade game by Capcom. Of the three new additions, Strider is the only game available this week. Users can easily find it in the GRID Games menu.
The other two games, Lego Movie: The Videogame and Dirt 3: The Complete Edition will arrive on GRID on April 28 and May 5, respectively. The Lego Movie: The Videogame is the latest Lego-based title offered by GRID, bringing the number of Lego-themed games on the service to seven. Codemasters' Dirt 3: The Complete Edition is the second Dirt game included in GRID, the first being its successor, Dirt: Showdown. Dirt 3: The Complete Edition will be the sixth racing game in the library.
Last month, Shield users saw the addition of multiplayer as well as local multi-controller support for certain games including Ultra Street Fighter IV, Grid 2, and Pixeljunk Shooter. With each new update, Nvidia added more and more games to GRID. Its 40th title, Metro: Last Light Redux was added at the beginning of March. Dirt 3: The Complete Edition will be the 49th game on GRID.
At GDC, we said that there would be 50 games available for GRID at launch. Considering that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was shown streaming on the new Shield, coupled with the recent news that the game has gone gold (meaning that development is finished) ahead of its May 19 release date, it's possible that the latest installment in The Witcher series could be the 50th title for GRID.
Right now, GRID is free to Shield users, but when the new Shield device arrives in a few weeks, GRID will become a subscription-based service, with a basic subscription providing streamed games at 720p and 30 fps. Upgrading to a premium subscription gives players 1080p/60fps gameplay.
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