As many of you know NVIDIA graced us with the Geforce Experience 5.0 update that brought a ton of changes and improvements for even the most hardcore cord cutters, yes those with a 10.1 setup, they care. Well they also gave us a new toy to play with, some of it new some of it stuff we already know and love.
So you remember the row above your apps and games? It’s gone now and so is the SHIELD Hub app, kind of, the Hub is actually now called NVIDIA Games and it’s really well done and has a load of content packed in there.
If you have auto-update enabled on your SHIELD TV, which is the default setting, this update will happen automatically. If not, you will need to manually check for an available update on Google Play.
So, whether you’ve downloaded an Android game from Google Play, streamed a PC game from the cloud on GeForce NOW, or linked to your GeForce GTX gaming PC for in-home game-streaming with GameStream, you’ll find all your games instantly in NVIDIA Games. The app does not alter any of your games – it simply changes the way you access them. All your saves remain intact, and you can pick up and play where you last left off before the update.
The amount of detail and thought that went into this app and its interface is amazing and really blew me away and I think anyone designing Android TV apps can learn and see how all the little metadata of an object like a Game can really make the screen full and the app feel dense giving the user all they’d need to know.
You can use voice search within NVIDIA Games to find a particular title, too. Simply press the NVIDIA button on your SHIELD controller to access voice search at any time. For example, say “The Witness or Just Cause 2” and the game tile will load – then simply click to play if you own it, or follow the prompts to purchase the game.
In conclusion I’m glad that NVIDIA decided to consolidate all their great services into one big app that’s well done and Play Store back so updates can be pushed if need be. Congrats on a job well done! Checkout the video below to see it in action or your SHIELD device. If you don’t have one be sure to pick one up here and for an extra controller here.
