Today, Nvidia has revealed a new cloud streaming service called Grid.

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Launching in North America alongside the Shield Tablet software update next Tuesday, November 18, Grid allows owners of the Shield Tablet and Shield Portable devices to stream select PC games from Nvidia's launch library. The service will come to Western Europe in December, and Asia next year."When you download the new Shield Hub update there will be a new tab there called Grid Games," said Phil Eisler, general manager of Grid Gaming. "In addition to playing your Android games, and any local GeForce games, you'll be able to connect to our cloud servers and stream a library of games that we have there."Nvidia has handpicked its launch catalog of games to offer something for everyone. Partnering with publishers like Warner Brothers Interactive, the Grid day-one library will include Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Asylum , in addition to Psychonauts, Dead Island, Borderlands, and Borderlands 2 among many more."We're going to start with 20 AAA PC games and we're going to be adding games every month," Eisler said. "The goal is to get to over 100 next year."Initially, Shield owners will be treated to a free preview of the service until June 30, 2015, at which time Nvidia will reevaluate and likely move toward a subscription-based pricing model."We're thinking probably along the Netflix line with sort of an affordable subscription fee for a bundle of games," Eisler said. "But probably Netflix Plus, because people also want to play brand new content so you'll be able to top up with new titles that have just been launched."But more than just a great deal for Shield owners, Grid gaming boasts top-of-line streaming computers in the Grid cloud network, well beyond anything currently available in a cloud streaming service.During our hands-on demo we were shown side-by-side comparisons of Darksiders 2 booting up at the same time on the Grid Gaming and PlayStation Now streaming services. In that closed environment, the Grid service did finish loading about twice as fast, and the subsequent gameplay was noticeably smoother running at 60Hz, as opposed to the PlayStation equivalent which looked choppy by comparison."Compared to the other cloud gaming service out there, PlayStation Now, which is based on the PlayStation 3 chips that Nvidia designed about 10 years ago," Eisler said, "in that time we've improved the performance of graphics a lot. So when you connect to Grid, you're connecting to a cloud gaming computer that's twelve times faster.""How that manifests itself is that you'll see that the load times of the games are much faster, they're about twice as fast -- about 23 seconds versus 52. And then our frame rate is twice as fast; we're going to stream to you at 60 frames per second which is going to reduce the latency and make it feel like that gaming computer is a console in your living room."Of course, as with all streaming services, your mileage may vary depending on your connection and geographic location, though Nvidia is opening up both an eastern and western data center to service the U.S. and Canada. Additional data centers will open to service Western Europe next month, with further centers supporting Asia next year.And while Nvidia has internally discussed the possibility of extending the Grid streaming service to Nvidia GPU owners at some point in the future, right now the focus is squarely on the Shield family."It's a big day for Nvidia, kind of a new chapter for us in bringing a cloud gaming service directly to gamers around the world," said Eisler. "It just reinforces that Shield is the best tablet for gamers now that you're going to get the local bundle, the Green Box bundle , plus another 20 games from the cloud that you can stream to your Shield Tablet."

Brandin Tyrrel is a freelance writer covering games and tech. There's absolutely no reason to follow him on Twitter