"Nvidia's Project Shield demos look impressive enough, but the chances are that you may already have a system in your home now that operates on similar principles, handing in excellent image quality and performance: Nintendo's Wii U. On a very basic level, the core principles behind the GamePad's display are almost identical - the base station console contains a hardware video encoder that compresses the image and beams it over a WiFi-like connection to the controller, where the data is decompressed and rendered on-screen. It's an elegant and simple solution - break open the GamePad and the internals amount to a WiFi-like transceiver provided by Broadcom, minimal logic and an LCD in combination with the traditional gaming controls. Image quality is generally very good, but the picture is a touch washed-out and artifacting can be seen but only if you look closely enough."
"This new home-focused iteration of cloud technology isn't going to be restricted to PC - the next generation consoles are invited to the party too. Both the new Xbox and its PlayStation competitor feature hardware h.264 video compressors built into their main processors, allowing for the streaming of live gameplay with no impact to system performance. The inclusion of this tech is there for a number of reasons. Rumours are already circulating that Orbis continuously records the on-screen action, with the ability to share the recording with others at any given point. We're fairly sure that next-gen Xbox will offer equivalent functionality since it too includes a dedicated video encoder, but that self-same hardware is perfect for positioning next-gen consoles as home gaming servers."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-the-cloud-is-coming-home
