AI's Memory Bill Reaches a Seven-Year-Old Streaming Box
Nvidia has announced that the Shield TV Pro is getting $100 more expensive, effective immediately, bringing it to $299.99. The cheaper non-Pro model has been discontinued.
The company's explanation is a supply chain one: "The cost of components, including memory, has increased substantially across the industry," a spokesperson told Ars Technica.
No new hardware, no new features — just a new number attached to a device already on the market. A $100 increase is a lot for a streaming box, and the stated driver is a component the wider AI build-out has been competing for. The price of an old gadget moving with the price of memory is one of the more mundane places the current boom shows up.
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The size of the increase is the least interesting part. What changed is a number, not the box: the same hardware that debuted back in 2019 is simply asking for more money.
The reason given — component and memory costs rising across the industry — is broad enough to cover almost any electronics maker. The real test is what happens to that $299.99 when memory prices eventually come back down.