Nvidia has raised the price of the Shield TV Pro by $100, bringing the Android TV streaming box to $299.99, effective immediately. The device first launched in October 2019 at $199.99, and the company says the hike comes from higher component costs, memory in particular, as reported by Ars Technica and 9to5Google.
The move ties one of the most recognizable living-room gadgets to the AI boom. Nvidia, now one of the world's most valuable companies thanks to its AI accelerators and GPUs, says the wider industry is paying more for the same memory and storage that go into years-old hardware.
What Nvidia says about the Shield TV Pro price
A company spokesperson told Ars Technica that the new price starts at $299. "The cost of components, including memory, has increased substantially across the industry," the spokesperson said. Nvidia has confirmed you can blame AI for the higher price.
Alongside the increase, Nvidia has ended production of the base Shield TV, the cheaper "tube" model that also arrived in 2019 at $149.99. That version has been out of stock for months. The Shield TV Pro is still out of stock on Nvidia's own store but is available at the new price from Best Buy, according to Ars Technica.
Nvidia Shield TV Pro specs and why it still matters
Seven years after launch, the Shield TV Pro remains one of the most capable Android TV streamers on the market. It runs on the aging Tegra X1+ processor, which is still fast for media playback, and it supports AI upscaling plus hardware decoding for almost any media format.
It is not perfect. As 9to5Google notes, the box lacks AV1 support, and at $300 it is a hard sell for someone who just wants to stream Netflix. Nvidia has said it will keep software support for the Shield TV for the foreseeable future, and the company told Ars it still manufactures the device and sells every unit it makes.
