Nvidia Shield delayed on eve of launch due to ‘mechanical issue’

The Nvidia Shield console won’t be hitting shelves this month as originally planned, thanks to a mechanical issue in the eleventh hour.

Nvidia’s Jason Paul posted on the company’s official blog, revealing that the Android-powered handheld device will miss its retail launch today and won’t be out until sometime in July.

"We won’t [release the device] until it’s fully up to the exacting standards that NVIDIA’s known for,” Paul wrote. And some final quality-assurance testing has just turned up a mechanical issue that we’re not happy with.”

So, while we announced last week that SHIELD will go on sale this Thursday, we’ve taken the hard decision to delay shipping until next month.”

Paul explained that the mechanical issue in question relates to the integrity of a third-party component, something that was significant enough for the team to postpone the hardware’s launch.

The issue relates to a third-party mechanical component, and we’re working around the clock with the supplier to get it up to our expectations.”

Shield is a mini-console that brings together a console-style controller and a 5-inch flip-up screen with 720p and multi-touch support. It runs $299, carries 2GB of RAM, and is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 4 mobile CPU/GPU combo and the Jelly Bean version of Google’s Android OS.