The Netflixization of Video Games Is Almost Here

If the volume of the screams and cheers for Nvidia's new Shield video-game console is any indication, the era of Sony and Microsoft's dominance over the living room is in jeopardy. The audience attending the event in San Francisco on Tuesday night consisted of about 2,000 gamers and software developers, who will also surely be the chipmaker's toughest critics.

Nvidia's biggest challenge isn't that it's trying to enter a two-horse race, where fans hold unwavering allegiances, or that it's got little experience making mainstream consumer-electronics products. Perhaps the biggest hurdle will be trying to sell gamers on an entirely new and largely untested technology. Instead of getting their games on discs or as downloads stored permanently on the system's hard drive, Shield owners will pay a subscription fee to stream content over the Internet. Sound familiar? "We want to be the Netflix of gaming," says Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jen-Hsun Huang.