NVIDIA TegraZone for Android

As you may very well know, Discoverability is a major issue for application developer and application (“apps”) stores in general. If even worse if you want to target a particular subset of features such as the ones offered by an advanced chip like NVIDIA’s Tegra 2. To solve this problem, NVIDIA has created the TegraZone app that lists and provides pointers to the best applications for its Tegra platform. TegraZone exists for Smartphones and Tablets

NVIDIA wants to make sure that users of its Tegra chips can quickly find games that uses exclusive features such as anisotropic filtering (the best possible texture filtering on graphics hardware).  Of course, this is also a way for the company to differentiate itself and allow its customers to differentiate themselves from a crowded handset market place. Everybody in the equation wins – except the competition. For the time being, this is a unique approach, but you can be sure that others will follow.

How does it work?

The principle is simple: TegraZone looks and feels like an app store in which you find Tegra optimized apps. However, it is not a store. It links back to the Android Market. As it is the case with other such environments, you can sort things by genre to quickly find something that is of interest. You can also search based on keywords – it should feel familiar. Once you find something that you like, you can even share it using social networks if you want. It is also possible to contribute by leaving a review if you feel like helping fellow Android users.

Conclusion

TegraZone is an app that makes the discoverability of Tegra-Optimized apps super easy, and although there’s no denying that there is a strategic marketing value for NVIDIA, it also adds a lot of value to end-users and developers.

It’s not hard to see how TegraZone will become a very important tool for NVIDIA as it helps developers get much more exposure than they normally would in the Android Market. Now, a developer has a chance be visible to 100% of Tegra 2 users, so focusing on making the game look better could really pay out not only now, but also in the future as other handsets catch up in graphics performance. For NVIDIA, this could create some sort of graphics “arms race” among developers – a graphics “virtuous circle”.

Finally, for you and I, the end results are better looking and faster games.  TegraZone is a free download from the Android market (the QR-code contains the link too).

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Cellphones, Tablets, Top Stories