Nvidia says it will continue supporting Shield TV with software updates and has not ruled out new hardware, even more than 10 years after the streaming device first launched. Company executives say demand remains steady and experimentation on future concepts is ongoing.
More than a decade after its debut, Nvidia’s Shield TV is still alive — and, according to the company, not nearing retirement.
In an interview with Ars Technica, Nvidia executives said the company has no plans to end software updates for Shield TV “any time soon,” and confirmed that new hardware remains a possibility, even though the last Shield TV model shipped more than five years ago.
At a time when consumer electronics are often abandoned after just a few years, Nvidia’s stance stands out — and reflects an unusually long-term approach to a niche but loyal user base.
A product that outlived expectations
The first Shield TV launched in 2015, positioning itself as a high-performance Android TV streaming device aimed at power users rather than mass-market consumers. Since then, the product line has received continuous software updates, with the most recent arriving in November.
According to Andrew Bell, a senior Nvidia engineering leader who oversees the project, the longevity was intentional. Shield began as an internal project, built by Nvidia employees who wanted a premium TV streamer outside Apple’s ecosystem.
Bell said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang encouraged the team to turn the internal device into a commercial product — and to support it for the long haul.
That philosophy is why even first-generation Shield TV units are still officially supported today.
Why Nvidia hasn’t shut it down
From a business perspective, Shield TV is not a volume product. But Nvidia says demand has been remarkably consistent.
Bell told Ars Technica that “the same number of people come out of the woodwork every week to buy Shield,” which has justified continued manufacturing and software maintenance.
For Nvidia, Shield also serves a strategic role. It showcases Nvidia’s hardware capabilities in video processing, AI upscaling, and gaming — areas that align closely with its broader GPU and AI ambitions.
Unlike many consumer devices, Shield has never been treated as disposable.
New hardware isn’t planned — but isn’t ruled out
While Nvidia stopped short of confirming a Shield TV successor, Bell made clear that the idea is very much alive internally.
The company continues to prototype new concepts in its labs, and Bell said that if Nvidia finds something it feels strongly about, it would consider releasing new Shield hardware.
If that happens, priorities would likely include:
- AV1 video decoding
- HDR10+ support
- Updated Dolby Vision capabilities
- Modernized video and media pipelines
Bell also suggested that a future model could revisit hardware decisions that frustrated users in the past — including the widely disliked dedicated Netflix button on the current remote, which he said was driven by Netflix certification requirements in 2019.
An unusual stance in consumer hardware
In an industry defined by rapid product cycles and planned obsolescence, Shield TV’s lifespan is increasingly rare. Many competing Android TV devices receive only a few years of updates, if any.
Nvidia’s approach reflects a different calculus: Shield may not be a major revenue driver, but it reinforces trust with enthusiasts and reinforces Nvidia’s reputation for long-term software support — a value that increasingly matters as devices become more complex and interconnected.
What this signals going forward
There are no timelines, no product announcements, and no guarantees. But Nvidia’s message is clear: Shield TV is not being phased out, and the idea of new hardware is still very much on the table.
For existing users, that means continued updates and relevance. For Nvidia, it’s a reminder that even in an AI-first era, the company is willing to keep supporting a decade-old consumer product — as long as people keep showing up to buy it.
