“If we find something we’re super excited about, we’ll probably make a go of it!”
It’s been almost seven years since Nvidia released its current Shield TV and Shield TV Pro devices, and yet they remain some of the best streaming boxes you can buy today. That longevity is largely down to how far ahead of the competition the Shield TV Pro was at launch, with rivals only recently beginning to catch up. Even now, Nvidia’s AI-powered video upscaling remains largely unmatched.
Despite that continued popularity, calls for a new and more powerful Shield TV have grown louder. Nvidia has access to far better components these days, and with Google TV now replacing Android TV as the preferred platform, it would make sense for the company to refresh its premium streaming hardware.
Thankfully, a new Shield TV doesn’t seem entirely out of the question. Speaking recently to Ars Technica, Nvidia’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, Andrew Bell, suggested the company is still actively experimenting with new ideas.
“We’re always playing in the labs, trying to discover new things,” he said. “We’ve played with new concepts for Shield and we’ll continue to play, and if we find something we’re super-excited about, we’ll probably make a go of it.”
What that might look like is still unclear, but with Apple also dragging its heels on a new Apple TV box, there’s a noticeable gap in the market for a high-end streaming device. New video standards have also emerged in recent years, with others — such as Dolby Vision 2 — still to come, giving Nvidia plenty of scope to appeal to home cinema enthusiasts once again.
In the meantime, existing Shield TV owners won’t be left behind. Nvidia has confirmed it has no plans to stop supporting its current devices any time soon. The most recent update, version 9.2.2, rolled out in November last year, delivering a number of fixes. That followed the more substantial 9.2 feature update released around 12 months earlier.
So while a next-generation Shield TV may still be some way off, one thing is clear: buying a Shield TV today remains a solid investment, and Nvidia isn’t done showing its ageing hardware some love just yet.
