We've said it before and we'll say it again: though Android may not be a great game platform, Nvidia is trying its damnest to make the platform better. Today, that means a host of new updates for the company's Nvidia Shield portable game console, updating the system to Android 4.4 and adding the ability to stream PC games outside your house — even waking your PC from sleep and letting you remotely log in, presumably after jumping through a few hoops to set up a compatible system.

The other thing that Nvidia's doing today is dropping the price of the Shield to just $199 through the month of April, with no strings attached, quite a dip from the original $299 MSRP. However, we're not sure if that's an admission the Shield isn't selling well, or simply clearing inventory for a new Tegra K1 powered Shield in the near future.

Welcome updates for a niche audience

Either way, new and existing Shield owners alike will surely appreciate the other features the update brings, including the ability to play games with Bluetooth keyboards and mice in the system's Console Mode, the ability to charge the system and use a USB devices simultaneously with a Micro USB OTG Y cable (yes, that's a real thing), a new interface for the GamePad Mapper, the ability to stream many more games (including Titanfall) and a new interface for the TegraZone app that lets you pair several different PCs with one Shield for streaming. We haven't gotten to try the update for ourselves yet, but Nvidia says it should be available on April 2nd. The company also says that the performance of streaming games outside your home — assuming you have a "robust" Wi-Fi connection — should be comparable to streaming them through Nvidia's Grid cloud gaming service.