Handheld gaming has taken some massive strides in the last decade. We've gone from consoles like the Sony PSP and DS, which had somewhat limited computing power, to devices like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch, which are capable of running some impressive titles natively on-device.

Even with the advances of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its compelling list of exclusive first-party titles, I'm still holding out hope for a completely different kind of handheld gaming device: the next Nvidia Shield.

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The Switch 2 has been shown off by Nintendo and I know that I will be getting it when it is released despite hating it.

While the Switch and Shield are fundamentally different devices, they accomplish the same thing when it's all said and done. The original Shield, while released to pretty minimal fanfare, was a great device. When it was first released in 2013, it was marketing was amiss and misunderstood. Later revisions helped cultivate a cult-like following, but outside of that, the general consumer just couldn't justify the cost.

For many, they saw the Shield as something you could play Android games on and not much else. The library of games on-device was limited, and many people didn't have the internet connection required for streaming games back then. Fiber internet wasn't available in nearly as many places as it is now, and this was a major reason why the Shield flopped.