By Kyle Barr
Publication Date: 2026-10-02 18:25:00
If there’s any one device that represents the Nvidia of ages past, it’s the Nvidia Shield TV set-top box, a TV streamer the company has promised to keep actively updated from now until eternity. If we’re looking for a new symbol to describe how Team Green has changed from gaming group to AI monolith, Nvidia has declared it’s no longer planning to sell its base gaming-focused TV streamer.
After trying its hand at various kinds of controller-based handhelds, Nvidia first brought us the original Shield TV in 2015. It kept updating its device and introduced various form factors over the years, but the base box reigned supreme. Now, in a statement made to multiple outlets, the most profitable company in the world said the reason it has to abandon the base Shield TV is due to “the cost of components, including memory,” which has “increased substantially across the industry.” The base Nvidia Shield TV ran on a mere 2GB of RAM with 8GB of storage.
Nvidia loves their Shield. It was designed as a quasi-gaming console, the one Nvidia longed to make but never did. It first hit the scene in 2015, but Nvidia has continued to support the device with new SoCs and software updates since then. Now, Nvidia confirmed that it’s killing off the base Shield and will only continue to sell the Shield Pro, though it’s currently listed as out of stock. That higher-end set-top box now costs $300, up $100 from before. The Pro streamer packs in 3GB of RAM and 16GB…
