Tag: consoles

The Nvidia Shield TV Is 7 Years Old. It Just Got a $100 Price Hike

Posted on by faz_business


The era of generative AI has upended technology supply chains, and there is one ironclad rule in 2026: If it has memory or storage, it’s getting more expensive. Even devices with years-old tech inside are still apparently subject to that unwritten rule. Nvidia has just announced that the Shield TV Pro is getting $100 more expensive, effective immediately.

The most recent version of the Shield streaming box debuted in 2019, running Android TV with AI upscaling and hardware decoding for almost any type of media. While it ran an aging Tegra X1+ processor, that was (and still is) fast for a TV media streamer. The device launched at $199.99, with a non-Pro variant at $149.99. The non-Pro Shield has since been discontinued, but the Shield TV Pro lives on at the new $299.99 price.

Nvidia has confirmed that you can blame AI for the higher Shield TV pricing. “Starting October 2, SHIELD Pro will be priced at $299. The cost of components, including memory, has increased substantially across the industry,” a spokesperson told Ars.

When Ars Technica talked to Nvidia’s Andrew Bell earlier this year, he framed the Shield as a passion project, but it looks like passion projects still have to pay the bills at Nvidia. In that interview, Bell explained that Nvidia still actively manufactures the Shield and sells every unit it makes. Without a stockpile of pre-AI hardware to sell, new Shield TV units are subject to the same supply chain constraints as today’s smartphones and computers.

Nvidia isn’t a victim here, though. As a key player in AI hyper scaling, the company is more responsible than most for the sky-high cost of components. It has also become one of the most valuable firms in the world thanks to its market-leading AI accelerators and GPUs. As a consequence, we’re seeing new products launch at higher prices than their predecessors, and many end up getting more expensive during their lifetimes. Game consoles have been particularly affected, with Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all bumping the prices of their current-gen hardware. The PS5 Pro, for example, has gone from $699.99 at launch in 2024 to $899.99 today.

Stock of the Shield TV Pro has been slim for the last few months, probably because it became too expensive to manufacture new units with component prices rising so quickly. At $300, it will make sense for Nvidia to churn out more devices. However, this higher price will cause an already niche set-top box to be even less appealing to people who just want to stream Netflix.

Unless you need the Shield’s extensive codec support or Plex server capability, it makes more sense to get a cheaper streamer. The Shield is still out of stock on Nvidia’s store, but it’s available at the new price from Best Buy.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

Asus ROG Ally X Review: More Battery and Storage, Same Windows Problems

Posted on by faz_business


I was harsh on the original Asus ROG Ally. Maybe a little too harsh, since many of the problems I had with it are inherent to the very concept of a Windows-based handheld gaming console. So, when I got my hands on the new ROG Ally X, I tried to be a bit more open-minded. It wasn’t hard, because the newer model is a substantial improvement. But some hurdles just can’t be overcome.

The ROG Ally X looks almost identical to its predecessor, save for a new coat of black paint. There are subtle differences, like rounded-out grips that are more comfortable to hold, slightly elevated ABXY buttons, and an eight-direction D-pad that handles diagonal movements a bit better. If you didn’t look too closely though, you’d be forgiven for thinking little has changed.

But under the hood, Asus has made some massive improvements. Most notably, the battery size has doubled. The original ROG Ally had a 40-Wh battery, roughly comparable to the original Steam Deck. The ROG Ally X, on the other hand, somehow packs a massive 80-Wh battery. That’s larger than the battery in Asus’s Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, which I loved for its lengthy battery life. Despite this massive increase, the Ally X is only about 70 grams heavier.

Asus also beefed up the storage capacity—it now comes with a 1-terabyte SSD instead of 512 GB—and 8 more gigabytes of DDR5 RAM. The company also swapped out the XG Mobile port that’s only really useful for Asus’ external GPUs for a USB4 port that can reach speeds up to 40 Gbps, making it ideal for connecting to external docking stations. But specs can’t tell the whole story.

Black handheld gaming device with knobs and buttons on either side of a wide screen

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

The Insurmountable Wall of Windows

Windows isn’t designed to be run on a handheld. That’s just a simple, unavoidable truth. Microsoft expects you to come to its operating system with a mouse and keyboard, or at least a large touch screen. Trying to navigate the OS with a controller is always going to be an exercise in frustration. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to escape the basic problem of trying to interact with things on the screen.

One prominent example of this is the Xbox app. Asus has made some solid strides with its Armoury Crate SE app that’s meant to be the bridge between all the other game libraries on your system. Armoury Crate launches at startup, there’s a dedicated button next to the right control stick to open it when you need it, and it has shortcuts to apps like Steam (which launches in the controller-friendly Big Picture mode) or Xbox so you can access any game you own.

Back of a black handheld gaming device showing the ports

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft