Sometimes we get to see pictures of products that haven’t been launched, that have been cancelled or simply forgotten. They cause nostalgia 99% of the times and make us wonder “what could have happened?”. The latest such occurrence involves the unlaunched NVIDIA Shield Portable 2.
The gaming device was found laying around in a pawn shop and it was bought by one lucky customer. Nvidia has had quite a few Shield devices under its belt already, like the Shield tablets, Shield TV box and the Shield Portable. That one was also known as the Nvidia Shield, being the first of its kind and all. That device was a real handheld gaming console, feeling like an Xbox controller mixed with a Nintendo DS.
A follow up never came and Nvidia moved on to other formats, but apparently one successor was in the making and it’s pictured above. Redditor FwrigginRwootbeer found the device in a pawn shop in Canada and it’s supposed to be a prototype for developers apparently. The user traded in his first gen Shield Portable for the machine and found that the second gen model has minor changes in the physical design area. Specs are more powerful, though.
They include a 1.91 GHz quad core ARM Cortex A57 CPU, most likely the Nvidia Tegra X1. There’s also 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, plus a 5.9 inch 1440 x 810 pixel display. The OG Shield had a Tegra 4 CPU, 2 GB of RAM and a 5 inch HD screen. Of course the prototype could be buggy, but we have no idea if it actually plays games fine. Nvidia’s Shield series in general doesn’t seem to be ready to churn out new models, as the Tegras have been offered to the automotive biz.
