Nvidia has no plans to stop Shield TV updates, hasn’t ruled out a Shield 2
The Nvidia Shield TV is an iconic device, on par with the Nexus One and the Moto DROID. Many people consider it the best streaming device, even though the latest model is more than five years old. That’s because Nvidia still supports even the oldest models and apparently it has no plans to stop.
According to a recent interview with Andrew Bell, executive vice president of Nvidia, the company has no plans to abandon its beloved streaming box anytime soon. He explained that the project started because Nvidia employees simply wanted a really good TV streamer that wasn’t tied to the Apple ecosystem. CEO Jensen Huang gave the green light to sell it to the public and said the company could sustain it “as long as we live.”
These are bold words, but the company absolutely delivered on them. The first model was launched in 2015 and just received a software update last November. What’s even more surprising is that Nvidia never stopped making new units. People are still buying Shield TVs every week, and Bell said the software updates won’t end “anytime soon.”
With so much success, you wouldn’t be alone in wondering why the company hasn’t released a Shield 2. Bell said they’ve been “playing around with new concepts” and if they “find something we’re excited about, we’ll probably give it a try.” If a successor eventually arrives, he said it would likely focus on modernizing the specs with AV1 decoding, HDR10+, and better Dolby Vision support.
Google’s streaming platform looks a lot different than it did the last time Nvidia launched a device. At the time, “Google TV” didn’t exist, it was “Android TV”. Nowadays, these older Shield devices are almost the last surviving Android TV devices without the Google TV interface. If a new Shield TV comes to fruition, it will be an easy purchase for many people, considering how Nvidia has handled previous models.
Source: ArsTechnica
The legendary Android TV streaming device that was ahead of its time
Every once in a while a really great product comes out, but it doesn’t get a lot of attention. It’s easy to forget about streaming boxes when we all have smart TVs, spare streaming dongles everywhere, or an old Google Chromecast in a junk drawer. However, this streaming box is over 10 years old and I still use mine daily.
