Nvidia Shield TV discontinued, while the Shield Pro gets a 50 percent price rise blamed on memory costs

[TristanFenwick]

End of an era for one of the best streaming boxes ever made. TechRadar reports that Nvidia has discontinued the standard Shield TV, leaving only the Shield TV Pro on sale. Worse news for anyone thinking of buying one is that the Pro has jumped in price by 50 percent, from $199 to $299, roughly £225. Nvidia blames rising component costs across the industry, particularly memory

This ties directly into the memory shortage we discussed with Micron earlier this week. AI data centres are swallowing huge amounts of memory, and that is pushing up prices for everyone else. TechRadar's Carrie Marshall pointed out the irony of AI demand making a streaming box more expensive. Google's TV Streamer and Roku devices have reportedly seen big price increases too. Shoppers are starting to notice those knock on effects

The Shield has been around for a long time, and it has been several years since its last hardware refresh. The Pro still runs on a Tegra X1 chip, the same family of processor used in the original Nintendo Switch, with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. It supports 4K HDR and Dolby Vision, and its AI upscaling was a standout feature when it launched. Nvidia has also kept it updated with software far longer than most manufacturers manage

For a lot of enthusiasts, the Shield has been the go to box for Plex servers, local media playback and emulation. It handles high bitrate files and audio passthrough better than most cheap streaming sticks. That loyal following is why it has stayed on sale for so long despite ageing hardware. Marshall suggests buyers might be wise to wait, partly because of the price rise and partly because a new Apple TV is expected soon

$299 for hardware this old is hard to justify, even with its strengths. Does anyone here still use a Shield? What would you replace it with if it died tomorrow? And are price rises like this going to become normal across consumer tech while the memory crunch lasts?

The Nvidia Shield Pro is getting a 50% price hike due to the AI component crisis - I sure hope Nvidia can work out whowww.techradar.com

[Odd Arrow]

Apple TV is the obvious replacement for most people. It is smooth, gets updates for years and handles most formats

The Plex and media server crowd might find it more limited though. Infuse helps a lot with local files on Apple TV