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Owners of Shield TV are disappointed by Nvidia’s decision to abandon GameStream

The options for playing video games today are overwhelming. It’s a shame that you can’t enjoy them in whichever way you prefer, especially when dealing with varying hardware platforms and displays. But there are methods to bridge that divide, and one of them is Nvidia’s Shield TV, which allows customers to broadcast PC games to their televisions. However, the corporation has said that it would no longer provide this vital link beginning in 2019.

Nvidia has informed Shield users this week that the GameStream service will be discontinued in the month of February. The function is going to be removed in the next software version.

PCs with a GeForce GTX card or above can take use of GameStream, with the output of whatever games the GPU is capable of optimising being sent to Shield TVs at up to 4K resolution, High Dynamic Range, and 60 frames per second.

Despite the company’s advocacy for Valve’s Steam Link, local streaming access to games from 2K, Epic, and the like becomes more difficult, if not impossible, due to the proliferation of distribution portals. Nvidia also provides a game library and server-based streaming via GeForce Now, but all sessions are time-limited and 4K streaming costs $20 per month.

To put it bluntly, the fact that GameStream is shutting down is a major disappointment since, for some individuals, it represented the greatest option available for enjoying the games they had forked out good money to acquire among a sea of less than stellar alternatives.