NVIDIA SHIELD Emerged From Console Plans and Remains in Production After a Decade
In an interview, Andrew Bell, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering at NVIDIA, said that the company has no plans to stop producing the NVIDIA SHIELD, which is the closest thing NVIDIA has ever made to a traditional game console.
The main reason for this decision is simple: there is still solid demand. According to Bell, demand for the NVIDIA SHIELD has remained stable over the last ten years. This gives NVIDIA enough reasons to keep manufacturing it, as the device continues to attract interest and remains profitable.
NVIDIA Will Keep Producing SHIELD
One of the most interesting points Bell mentioned is that almost everyone working at NVIDIA in its earlier years, before the company became heavily focused on artificial intelligence, wanted to create a console.
They were never able to build a traditional console in the classic sense, but the NVIDIA SHIELD allowed them to partially fulfill that goal. The device still offers strong value thanks to long-term software support and compatibility with many services.
The model currently in production is the 2019 NVIDIA SHIELD, and it will continue to receive updates. As for the idea of making a full console, Bell made it clear that it cannot be ruled out. With NVIDIA entering new markets through its N1 and N1X series SoCs, and now having a major partnership with Intel, the company is in a stronger position than ever to move into this space.
NVIDIA could potentially reach an agreement with Intel to design and manufacture a custom SoC combining an Intel x86-64 CPU with an integrated NVIDIA GPU. A chip like this could become a serious competitor to AMD and could threaten AMD’s semi-custom SoC business, as long as it is competitive not only in performance, but also in cost.
For now, NVIDIA SHIELD remains alive and supported—but the idea of a true NVIDIA console is clearly still on the table.
