Yes. And it's ironic that they can do this ten years ago but can't be bothered to make a new one today. I guess the old one still works well enough and people buy it though which the article states.
Feels like a reverse Bell Labs approach. They find their cash cow and only invest in their cash cow rather than research new product areas and fields.
Its not ironic, its perfect business sense. 10 years ago they gave a shit about gamers and streamers as they were their main market. Now its all about AI server hardware, and they are fighting off international mega clients who all want to secure their chip output for years to come.
Why would Nvidia give 2 hoots about a living room streaming box now?
Because having all your eggs in one basket (GPUs), especially when that basket is artificially huge and likely to crumble, (AI Bubble), is a TERRIBLE idea?
I think they had done a minor hardware refresh, at the time it came out it was pretty powerful compared to the underpowered alternatives, plus the promise of pure Android TV on it.
This is just being released now, which probably means its been in the R&D pipeline for the last few years. I would wager this is last gamer feature tech that Nvidia develops for quiter a while.
I mean the main reason it exists is because. Nvidia spent a bunch of money designing and fabbing the Tegra for automotive use and nobody bought it so the project was desperate to find a customer rather than out of the goodness of their hearts. That's also why they sold it to Nintendo at a bargain basement price for the Switch.
I strongly suspect the reality is that they had to give Nintendo so much money back due to the complete failure of the bootloader security that they still produce the Shield as Jensen still demands they claw their way back to break even.
