Nvidia is talking up its first consumer-electronics device following its recent release.
The graphics-card maker said that it was happy with the reception of its Android-based portable device known as Shield and that the handheld is selling well.
“Sales have been great. Everything that we’ve shipped so far has sold out,” Nvidia director of investor relations Chris Evenden said during a call with investors. “We’re just starting to ramp up production, but we’ve only shipped out several thousand units to our retail partners. It’s still quite early, but we’re expecting to do quite well with Shield.”
Nvidia Shield runs on Nvidia’s latest Tegra 4 mobile-graphics processor and enables gamers to play Android games with a large screen and physical controls. The device retails for $300, and it also enables gamers to stream full PC titles from their Nvidia-equipped desktops.
This is technology firm’s first attempt at selling a full gaming device to consumers. It’s also one of the first products on the market with the Tegra 4, which is potentially more important to the company.
Tegra sales were down big in Nvidia’s second quarter, which it reported earlier today. The company is in the middle of a transition from the Tegra 3 chip, which is in devices like the Ouya console and Windows Surface RT, to the Tegra 4. The Surface RT flop put a big dent in Tegra’s performance.
“This was our Tegra trough quarter,” said Evenden. “We talked about that transition before. Tegra 4 was a little bit later than our typical cycle. We expect next quarter to be up substantially.”
Nvidia believes Tegra 4 sales will ramp up quickly. In addition to the Shield, hardware makers including Asus, Toshiba, and HP are all using the chip in some of their upcoming tablets.