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Television

NVIDIA Drops the Basic Shield TV's Price To $180 (engadget.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the deal-alert dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: NVIDIA's Shield TV promised to be an Android set-top box for gamers, and in that sense, it delivered. The company first released it in 2015, but its updated version cut down on price by bundling the $50 remote in to make the base-tier $200 version more cost-efficient. Now they're dropping that price down to $180, which is an even better deal. NVIDIA is keeping the $200 tier by bundling in its normally $60 controller alongside the included remote.
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NVIDIA Drops the Basic Shield TV's Price To $180 More

NVIDIA Drops the Basic Shield TV's Price To $180

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  • ....gives a shit. And more to the point, why is Nvidia farting around with TV when it could just make bank pumping out (and overcharging for) "cryptocurrency-optimized" video cards?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      The same reason the poisoned Nvidia experience application with spyware - whoever is in charge at Nvidia is chasing "big data" trend.

  • Lots of competition (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday September 21, 2017 @11:33AM (#55238615)
    There are many more Android boxes available for much less. Obviously quality varies, but the Xiaomi Wi box is supposed to be superb and available for $70. It doesn't come with a game controller, but the remote is supposed to be pretty good and doesn't the Shield just play Android games anyway?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not just Android games, though. I can stream a large part of my Steam library to my TV using the Shield. It's a nice device. Granted, yes, it's expensive, but the device, the controller and the packaging are all premium quality. The remote needs work (stupid unlabeled volume slider). I watch a lot of YouTube on it. I stream my media to it via Plex. I use it for Netflix. I play games on it.

      • Where is the game actually running then?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          According to Google, the game runs on your PC, you're just "casting" it to the shield via wifi.

          • Why wouldn't you just play the game on a PC monitor then? Or attach the PC to a TV?

            • I use the steam link. I have a pretty beefy computer in the living room but I don't game enough to build another one for the bedroom. It's pretty nice being able to play games in either room.

              I already had a firetv otherwise I probably would have went for the shield since the cost of the firetv + steam link + controller would come pretty close and would stop me from messing with different inputs and having multpile devices plugged in the bedroom

      • But you can do that without a shield too. Just install moonlight, it understands nvidia's streaming protocol so it can talk to GFE running on your pc and stream just the same as the shield does

      • And I can stream ALL of my Steam library to my TV with my $30 Steam Link. nVidia has missed the boat on this market segment big time. The Shield is overpriced for what it does and that might have been OK when it was one of the few games in town, but now everyone and their dog can do it as well or better for less. Between my Steam Link and a Minix mini Windows 10 box I picked up for $170 CDN on sale, I have everything I want. The Minix runs Kodi for all my media and some emulation, Steam Link for PC gamin

    • No, the Shield does have exclusive games (in addition to the regular Google Play ones).

      Not that this matters, the "real" gamers are not buying the Shield.

      And most of the people I know (two acquaintances, not very many) who have the Shield use it mostly to cast youtube videos and chrome tabs to it. And so, I'm pretty sure that they didn't need an Android TV, let alone an overpowered one with its own set of high graphics games.

      A simple $35 Chromecast would have done the trick.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      ...but the Xiaomi Wi box is supposed to be superb and available for $70.

      I think you mean the Mi Box [androidcentral.com] . I don't see Nintendo letting that fly having another device that hooks to your TV and plays games with a name that's phonetically the same.

    • doesn't the Shield just play Android games anyway?

      There are a few last-gen AAA titles that have been ported. Certainly would not satisfy a hardcore gamer though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jon3k ( 691256 )
      I just replaced my two Roku4 with NVIDIA Shield. I was switching from Plex (because Plex is creepy [techcrunch.com] ) to Kodi and couldn't be happier. The Shield's hardware is extremely impressive, the UI is incredibly fast. It makes the Roku4 and Plex feel awful to use. Using a shared db with Kodi [kodi.wiki] solved all my issues of tracking watched status between players. No cost, no accounts, no shady Plex business, a vastly superior device, a fantastic mobile app (again, at no cost) plus the flexibility and huge amount of Add-
  • I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want to buy this thing. I suppose someone here may have an extra $180 burning a hole in their pocket but I don't have that problem myself.

    • These kinds of slashvertisements often backfire, because people come to Slashdot to read the comments, and the comments often point out better alternatives for cheaper.

    • I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want to buy this thing.

      Moreover, you need a Google account to use the Shield. Am I not getting stalked enough by Google that I need to have them snoop on my TV viewing as well? Blow this for a game of soldiers.

  • The best of both worlds.

  • The article gets it wrong... (Score:3)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Thursday September 21, 2017 @12:33PM (#55239059)

    All Shield TVs used to come with a controller. What they're doing now is dropping the $60 controller but only giving you a $20 break on the price. Not worth it.

    As a Shield TV owner I'm really happy with the quality and performance of the hardware. The problem is the damn this is crippled by only running Android TV so can only get Android TV apps without much fiddling, and generally speaking there's not a lot of software available for it.

    • All Shield TVs used to come with a controller. What they're doing now is dropping the $60 controller but only giving you a $20 break on the price. Not worth it.

      As a Shield TV owner I'm really happy with the quality and performance of the hardware. The problem is the damn this is crippled by only running Android TV so can only get Android TV apps without much fiddling, and generally speaking there's not a lot of software available for it.

      They come with a game controller, which is a bit bulky for use as a remote control. However, it is controllable with the android tv app on a phone.

      • They come with a game controller, which is a bit bulky for use as a remote control. However, it is controllable with the android tv app on a phone.

        The $180 one only comes with a remote, no game controller. But there are so few games for the controller it's probably not a big deal. Main advantage is the battery life when using headphones is better on the gamepad than on the remote.

        • They come with a game controller, which is a bit bulky for use as a remote control. However, it is controllable with the android tv app on a phone.

          The $180 one only comes with a remote, no game controller. But there are so few games for the controller it's probably not a big deal. Main advantage is the battery life when using headphones is better on the gamepad than on the remote.

          Ok that's funny, because until now it was the other way around and the slimline remote was an extra!

          • The remote has been bundled in it for quite some time, I think at least a year. Definitely the old shield that was much bigger (2015) didn't include the remote unless you upgraded to the "Pro" bundle. I think the change over for a free remote occurred when they removed the microSD slot.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ... 10% off a product that nobody gives a shit about (or even knows existed) is news?

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