Nvidia has just announced two final details about its upcoming Shield gaming tablet. First, the tablet's "sometime in June" launch window is now June 27. Second, the price has been cut from the original $349 to $299, a small but significant drop.

"We’ve received feedback from thousands of gamers that if SHIELD was $299, we’d have a home run on our hands," read the brief announcement.

There are two ways to read this announcement. The first is the way Nvidia is spinning it—that in response to feedback from its customers it has cut $50 off the price to hit a more psychologically appealing $299 price point. On the other hand, if this were a traditional console maker like Nintendo and Sony making price cuts to a traditional handheld console like the 3DS or Vita, I'd be more tempted to say that initial sales had been disappointing and that Nvidia was trying to juice them a bit before the official launch. The Shield tablet straddles the line between Android tablet and game console, so it's difficult to judge—we've asked Nvidia what initial preorders have been like and will update if we get a response.

The Shield marries Nvidia's new Tegra 4 SoC to a 5-inch, 720p display and an Xbox 360-esque gaming controller. Games for the tablet-turned-portable console will be available through Google Play and Nvidia's own Tegra Zone software, but the device will also support the streaming of certain PC games from GeForce-equipped computers. We'll be reviewing the final Shield hardware as soon as we can get one in our hands.