Don't Expect A New Nvidia Shield Tablet Anytime Soon

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Don't Expect A New Nvidia Shield Tablet Anytime Soon

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday January 9, 2019 @02:00PM from the bad-news-for-people-who-like-good-news dept.

During a small press gathering at CES in Las Vegas today, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company doesn't have any plans to resurrect the Shield Tablet, which launched in 2014, was last refreshed in 2015 and officially discontinued last year. "Shield TV is still unquestionably the best Android TV in the world," he said. "We have updated the software now over 30 times. People are blown away by how much we continue to enhance it." And more (unspecified) enhancements are coming, he said. TechCrunch reports: On the mobile side, though, the days of the Shield Tablet are very much over, especially now that the Nintendo Switch, which uses Nvidia's Tegra chips, has really captured that market. "We are really committed to [Shield TV], but on mobile devices, we don't think it's necessary," Huang said. "We would only build things not to gain market share. Nvidia is not a "take somebody else's market share company.' I think that's really angry. It's an angry way to run a business. Creating new markets, expanding the horizon, creating things that the world doesn't have, that's a loving way to build a business."

He added that this is the way to inspire employees, too. Just copying competitors and maybe selling a product cheaper, though, does nothing to motivate employees and is not what Nvidia is interested in. Of course, Huang left the door open to a future tablet if it made sense -- though he clearly doesn't think it does today. He'd only do so, "if the world needs it. But at the moment, I just don't see it. I think Nintendo did such a great job."

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Wait a minute.... by leonbev · 2019-01-09 14:23 · Score: 1

This is the same CEO of the company who came to fame by crushing 3dfx and Matrox in the graphics card wars of the late 1990's and 2000's... right?
Now that they are huge, they suddenly aren't interested in stealing marketshare from their competitors?
1. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  *I* like whipping out my "CEO" and coming to fame over li'l BeauHD's millenial face. He's suuuuuch a naive cutie. And his BF doesn't deserve him.
2. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:29 · Score: 0
  
  Their previous Shield sucked and burned. That probably has as much to do with it as anything.
3. Re: Wait a minute.... by pecosdave · 2019-01-09 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but they did it by doing it better, not Microsoft of the 1990's giving a CEO hookers and blow on a yacht trip to get a corporation to ditch Novell for NT regardless of what the I.T. team thought. Doing it better is why they stay on top reputation wise. As far as graphics chips are concerned AMD is better positioned contract wise and even availability wise in laptops. I still go out of my way to get Nvidia due to old wounds from ATI that still hurt and I just am consistently amazed at what I can do with even ten year old Nvidia cards with just a fraction of the AMD driver headaches.
  For reference I'm a fossil - I still like the AMD CPU/Nvidia GPU combo despite the death of that tend many many moons ago
  
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4. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:38 · Score: 0
  
  You have a micro penis and you are flaccid and cannot orgasm. You would make a good Democrat though.
5. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:38 · Score: 0
  
  If your penis touches his skin you die of AIDS
6. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:45 · Score: 0
  
  So you derive pleasure from pearl necklacing BeauHD without touching him? To each his own......
7. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:53 · Score: 0
  
  "I still go out of my way to get Nvidia due to old wounds from ATI" - So you're an admitted moron operating on 10 year old information, how droll. Next.
8. Re: Wait a minute.... by msauve · 2019-01-09 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  "get a corporation to ditch Novell for NT [NetBEUI] regardless of what the I.T. team thought."
  
  If an IT team thought those were the only choices in the '90s, they should be glad to have a job at Micky D's today.
  
  --
  "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
9. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 15:11 · Score: 0
  
  This is the same CEO of the company who came to fame by crushing 3dfx and Matrox in the graphics card wars of the late 1990's and 2000's... right?
  Now that they are huge, they suddenly aren't interested in stealing marketshare from their competitors?
  Huang and nVidia have both run out of steam.
  In other words, they have become bloated.
10. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 15:17 · Score: 0
  
  This is what happens when you let H1B Stinkdus do things. They fuck up everything they're involved with and make everything around them smell like a shit stained landfill.
11. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 15:26 · Score: 0
  
  So you're an admitted moron operating on 10 year old information
  Well, in ten years, AMD's shit drivers have only gotten shittier, so things are working out quite well for him, I dare say.
12. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 15:28 · Score: 0
  
  "AMD's shit drivers have only gotten shittier" - When Nvidiots lie, their dicks get smaller. At this rate you're full eunuch in a week.
13. Re:Wait a minute.... by LordKronos · 2019-01-09 16:13 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  This is the same CEO of the company who came to fame by crushing 3dfx and Matrox in the graphics card wars of the late 1990's and 2000's... right?
  While my memory of that period may not be as clear 20+ year later, I think Nvidia was actually breaking new ground back then. Matrox made some wickedly fast 2d accelerated cards, but I don't seem to recall them ever having anything particularly compelling in the 3d market (the attempts they did make were either slow, poor quality, or both). 3dfx had some killer 3d performance, but every one of their cards was neutered in some form or another (required separate 2D card, limited resolution, only 16-bit color, 2D+3D in one card sacrificed performance).
  Nvidia sort of created the perfect middle ground. A single card that could perform extremely good at both 2D and 3D (though not top of the line at either), great image quality, and not too pricey. And though my memory is less certain on this, I feel like they were earlier to have full opengl and better support for new direct3d features. And when the GeForce cards came out with the first implementations of programmable transform/lighting pipelines, that was the final nail in the coffin for most of the competition...you could have your cake AND eat it, and they'd even throw some extra sprinkles on the top for good measure.
14. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 16:37 · Score: 0
  
  They already have their product in the most popular portable gaming console.
15. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 17:36 · Score: 0
  
  Nvidia existed a year before 3Dfx did. Matrox was never a serious competitor in the 3D acceleration arena.
16. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 17:54 · Score: 0
  
  They are still charging 200$ for the thing, why would they stop?
17. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 18:01 · Score: 0
  
  Sounds like you speak from experience.
18. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 18:14 · Score: 0
  
  "(required separate 2D card, limited resolution, only 16-bit color, 2D+3D in one card sacrificed performance)." = Did you grow up in Siberia? That's not true at all.
19. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 18:37 · Score: 1
  
  3dfx Voodoo 2 (1998) most certainly required a separate graphics card. It was only a 3D accelerator. Voodoo 3 (1999) had a VGA output and supported 16-bit color (plus dithering so it didn't look like total crap). The Nvidia RIVA TNT was released in 1998 and supported 32-bit color. Competing with the Voodoo 3 was the Geforce 256 which was the beginning of the end for 3dfx.
20. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:07 · Score: 0
  
  At least with Nvidia you know your games are going to work without hassle or incident. With ATI you'll come across incompatibility, upon instability, upon poor performance, upon visual artefacts and have constantly fight your system to make it just run shit.
  Nvidia is the way it's meant to be played.
21. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:30 · Score: 0
  
  How did it suck?
  I have a second-gen (K1) Shield tablet and I love it. But it's getting kind of old and I'd love to upgrade to another similarly sized tablet but it's hard finding one that's not bogged down with some highly customized branded Android distro.
22. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:58 · Score: 0
  
  for a very short period prior to the TNT matrox actually had a very compelling offering, but it was quickly surpassed by both Nvidia and ATI.
23. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 02:35 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, the parent is an idiot. I still have my first gen Shield tablet and it is fantastic. I was holding out hope Nvidia would bring them back. Sad to see this. I don't know what I'll get when this one finally succumbs. It still runs fantastic but its getting to be 5 years old. Its surprising how fast the hardware is after all these years.
24. Re: Wait a minute.... by Type44Q · 2019-01-10 02:52 · Score: 1
  
  I was running Matrox Millenniums and Matrox Mystiques at the time but 3Dfx was already kicking their ass by then. Case in point: the Matrox version of Tomb Raider ran [accelerated] at 640x480 but the 3Dfx/Glide version rendered Lara Croft's ass beautifully at 800X600.
25. Re:Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 02:53 · Score: 0
  
  Matrox never had shit for 3D acceleration. I once had a Matrox m3d and it was garbage that nothing supported. My Voodoo 2 cards were vastly superior. So was my Rendition Verite 2200.
26. Re: Wait a minute.... by Type44Q · 2019-01-10 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  Spot ion. 3Dfx' strength lay in their insanely-efficient, proprietary API but the turning point was when nVidia rolled out polygon acceleration in hardware ("transform and lighting").
27. Re: Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  - Heh, retarded faggot shit blathered from a man's talking asshole. Nvidia is crippleware for intellectually challenged mommas-boys. You love being raped, you don't have to admit it, you just did. Go pay twice.
28. Re: Wait a minute.... by pecosdave · 2019-01-11 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  I have to agree - I don't live in a little box with just my stuff.
  I had a conference room to take care of at my last job - and I was beating my head against the wall with "Why won't it make sound?" Turns out the "correct" Radeon drivers wouldn't do sound over HDMI, I had to find some fossilized ones to do it instead. No - I've had recent Radeon issues to compliment my old wounds.
  
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29. Re: Wait a minute.... by pecosdave · 2019-01-11 02:52 · Score: 1
  
  I'm consistently impressed with the performance of my ancient GTX480 card that I have in my "Wintendo" system. I have it hooked up to a TV with Windows 10 and Steam in Big Picture mode. My kids can play any of the games they want to play on it, and so can I. Sure, it doesn't do the latest AAA titles in stupid high resolution, but it plays Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams, Lego Lord of the Rings, and Mickey's Castle of Illusion without a problem, my kids think it's the greatest thing ever. With a Radeon I fear I would have to switch drivers between each game, and that the card would be too old to matter.
  
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30. Re: Wait a minute.... by pecosdave · 2019-01-11 02:53 · Score: 1
  
  I could admin LANtastic as well, but I still thought Novell Netware was about the best thing going for small offices back then.
  
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31. Re: Wait a minute.... by pecosdave · 2019-01-11 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  I used 3Dfx before I used Nvidia. I still have my driver CD.....
  
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32. Re:Wait a minute.... by thoughtlover · 2019-01-13 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  I don't fall for Huang's feel-good explanation for a couple reasons... One, trash-talking AMD's new Radeon 7. Two, since the Switch basically does the Shield better than Nvidia was willing to, why fight a product that has all the games, too??
  Chip CEOs throw shade at each other at CES: 'Lousy and nothing new'
  Huang continued to criticize Su's stage moment, saying, “Wow, underwhelming, huh?"
  “Weird launch," he added. "Maybe they thought of it this morning."
  https://www.bizjournals.com/sa...
  
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First Post by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:25 · Score: 0

All hail Anonymous Coward.
Just pay your employees well by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:26 · Score: 0

They'll do anything if you pay them a ton of money. ANYTHING.
1. Re: Just pay your employees well by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:33 · Score: 0
  
  But you still haven't bent over yet.
The What Now? by Bobrick · 2019-01-09 14:31 · Score: 2

Who the hell was expecting A New Nvidia Shield Tablet Anytime Soon?
1. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 14:38 · Score: 0
  
  And the follow-up, what kind of idiot would ever consider buying one? Nvidia is horrible at this. Their last device got landfill-binned for good reason. Some Windows-RT battered wives perhaps.
2. Re:The What Now? by Xylantiel · 2019-01-09 15:21 · Score: 1
  
  And what is that about stealing somebody else's market share? The Nintendo switch IS NVIDIA's hardware. They would just be stealing their own market share. I had 2 shield tablets for my kids, and it became obvious to me long ago that unless something suddenly changed, NVIDIA was perfectly happy to make the hardware for Nintendo instead of making a next generation. Seems to me it's actually a pretty good deal for them as a mainly hardware company.
3. Re:The What Now? by postbigbang · 2019-01-09 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  I think Jensen's an outstanding engineering team manager.
  As a marketer, not so much.
  Technical excellence is a wonderful aspiration, as is employee value recognition. All this notwithstanding, Wall Street will punish him mercilessly, and for good reasons (by their standards). They've cut his stock price into less than half of its peak, and NVIDIA isn't out of the woods.
  Tuns out, yes, you have to sell something, and that something eventually needs to have margins somehow, and just being best doesn't count unless that recognition means a visible future, blue sky as that might be.
  CUDA and other cores are lovely. Attaching them to cloud VMs and containers is lovely. Lots of cool science and HPC is lovely. Fabulous Disney is lovely. Underneath the surface, however, is a one-trick pony. The same market conditions that made Intel/AMD/ARM successful haven't opened up for NVIDIA, and so NVIDIA shouldn't play by silicon maker rules, IMHO. Brilliance is wonderful, but economics often elude the best engineers. Were Andy Grove around, he'd tell Jensen to be really paranoid.... and with good reason. Just my 2c worth.
  
  --
  ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
4. Re:The What Now? by guacamole · 2019-01-09 17:47 · Score: 1
  
  Since at least two years ago, it was basically a foregone conclusion that there won't be a new shield tablet. This is pretty sad because I actually like android tablets. Around 2014-2016 the Shield was the best android tablet hands down. For one, it had the best CPU/GPU combo and the price was just right. It probably didn't sell so well because Nvidia marketed it as a gamer tablet while in reality it was a good general purpose tablet.
5. Re:The What Now? by japa · 2019-01-09 23:49 · Score: 1
  
  I wasn't expecting, but I was hoping for one.
  I have nvidia shield from 2014 and I've been amazed on the continued support (OS Updates). Initially I bought it with gaming in the mind, but actually I haven't played games with it that much. The HDMI out is excellent and I would expect such a feature in all tables for the value add it gives. Unfortunately my shield has dropped one too many times and it has big crack across the screen, lost the stylus pen plus few scratches. I'd consider purchasing a new one if one would be available. The Nintendo Switch is a gaming tablet, not an android tablet, so it will not be an option.
  I addition to regular browsing the web, the most common use is pluggin the table to TV via HDMI and watching content from the web from different providers (android apps) or optionally movies saved to the tablet. Can't do that with swtich based on my quick research.
  And to top it, this tablet doesn't feel under powered though it's very old in internet terms...
6. Re: The What Now? by c6gunner · 2019-01-09 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  Their last device got landfill-binned for good reason.
  What reason was that? I picked up a shield tablet pretty cheap a few years back thanks to the poor sales, but never understood why people didn't like them. I'm still using it today.
7. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:27 · Score: 0
  
  Do you mean the SHIELD Tablet K1? I've still got one and when I bought it it was pretty damn good. It perfectly filled the gap in the market for a no-bullshit 7-8" Android tablet with a mostly-stock OS with good performance after Google stopped making the Nexus 7.
8. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:35 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe not "expecting", but certainly "hoping". My Shield, currently running LineageOS, is *still* the best value proposition I've seen for an Android tablet, and the performance and feature set is *still* fine for text consumption, which is what I generally use it for. It's getting a little long in the tooth and I'm going to hate to have to move on.
9. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 00:36 · Score: 0
  
  It probably didn't sell so well because Nvidia marketed it as a gamer tablet while in reality it was a good general purpose tablet.
  Yeah, I never understood why they marketed it as a gaming tablet, it was an excellent general purpose tablet (still is except for the performance relative to newer applications and versions of Android).
10. Re:The What Now? by rtb61 · 2019-01-10 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  Beware Nvidia Shield TV is no where near as premium as they claim, latest updates were extremely poorly done, requiring three efforts. Shield TV needed to be rebooted nearly everyday and sometimes the reboots did not work and required repeated plugging and unplugging. At a guess the morons did not clear the cache prior to doing updates (passed on the possible solution), so stored data no longer matched applications causing repeated failures. So not so premium at all (it has been working since the last update so far).
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
11. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 02:41 · Score: 0
  
  OK troll boy. Shouldn't you be calling people the n-word on fortnite or something?
  The reality was this was a fantastic tablet. I have the first gen and at 5 years old its still fast and rock solid. Best 7" (class) Android tablet ever made, and I owned both gens of the Nexus 7 as well. This tablet was awesome and supported by Nvidia for a long time.
12. Re:The What Now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 02:45 · Score: 0
  
  I have the Nvidia Shield TV Pro for 2 years and had none of these issues. It has been a fantastic device.
  And, for the record, I have a Radeon graphics card in my gaming PC. I'm no fanboy, but the Shield line of hardware is fantastic.
13. Re:The What Now? by JackieBrown · 2019-01-10 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  They make the best android TV on the market. After 3 years of buying android tv boxes that actually ran the tablet version of android (which made using a remote difficult) I finally bit the bullet and bought the shield. It's old and still getting updates, run smooth, and plays everything I throw at it.
  I wish I had started with the nvidia shield (TV not tablet). It would have been actually cheaper than all the android boxes I bought before that never updated.
14. Re:The What Now? by JackieBrown · 2019-01-10 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  I've had the shield TV for about a month. The only time I have rebooted was to install a new update. I looked on the xda forums and didn't see many issues. Sorry the experience for you wasn't great. But honestly - try one of the android tv boxes on amazon. You will have a newfound respect for the shield.
15. Re:The What Now? by Chuk · 2019-01-10 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I got my kid one and it's been great.
  
  --
  chuk
Nintendo Switch by Misagon · 2019-01-09 15:31 · Score: 2

That's because the Nintendo Switch is practically the current incarnation of the NVidia Shield hardware.
Nintendo is doing a better job selling NVidia's Shield hardware than Nvidia ever could an Android device, so it would be counter-productive to compete with yourself with something that would have less appeal.
Again, it's about the apps!
BTW. There are rumours about a second-generation Switch coming up, supposedly sometime in the second half of this year.

--
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
1. Re:Nintendo Switch by Luckyo · 2019-01-09 19:52 · Score: 1
  
  Additionally it wouldn't be surprising if there was a non-competition clause in nvidia's supplier contract, which prohibits nvidia from entering the market with a new device that would compete with the shield.
2. Re:Nintendo Switch by sad_ · 2019-01-09 23:47 · Score: 1
  
  true, it's all about the apps, but the switch has got none of the apps you would normally find on a tablet.
  
  --
  On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
3. Re:Nintendo Switch by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 05:00 · Score: 0
  
  They make more money selling the chipsets to nintendo, so nintendo can sell them at 2 time what they are worth.
  Switch is just an overpriced tablet with exclusive mario software.
  Anyone buying a "switch" is getting ripped off by both nvidia and nintendo.
  as far as I'm concerned they can all go fuck themselves
4. Re:Nintendo Switch by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  and its tiny which fucker at nintendo decided to make it as small as a phone and only 720p (screens must be really really cheap, so $$$$$$$ profit for nintendo, £300 for a 6inch tablet)
5. Re:Nintendo Switch by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 07:23 · Score: 0
  
  I would pay more just for the experience. I have a PS4 collecting dust...
The last couple updates have made it unstable by future+assassin · 2019-01-09 15:36 · Score: 1

been freezing on me about 4 times where I had to hard boot not including the hand remote no longer works after the updates.

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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
To hell with the Shield Tablet. by damnbunni · 2019-01-09 17:12 · Score: 1

I want a new Shield Portable.
Not only a fossil, you're a revisionist moron. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 17:33 · Score: 0

"Yes, but they did it by doing it better," - Like this? https://www.infoworld.com/article/2705057/why-did-nvidia-cripple-its-linux-driver.html
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/07/did-nvidia-cripple-its-cpu-gaming-physics-library-to-spite-intel/ Or this?
Or any number of faked benchmarks or other bullshit, crippling dev shops intentionally? You're a moron lol PecosDumbass.
Shield TV is a wonderful product by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-09 19:40 · Score: 4, Informative

It is refreshing to see a technology product not forced into obsolescence quickly just to allow the device manufacturer to sell you a marginally improved version 2 of the device.
I got the 2015 Nvidia Shield TV upon release - at the time it was a device that I was told was overpowered and future proof by design, and they were spot on.
Maybe because it was built to be a media hub as well as gaming system (though I really don't play games with mine), but the evolving features and performance over the years have been extremely good.
Firmware updates and partnerships with Amazon has ensured that the system remains supported and stays current with the best of streaming services.
The Nvidia Shield TV has set the bar for quality!
1. Re:Shield TV is a wonderful product by Guybrush_T · 2019-01-10 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  I was actually also surprised to see updates on the Shield Tablet way after Samsung stopped updating my Galaxy Tab S. Both launched at approx the same time, and the Galaxy Tab S was even more expensive.
  Shield products tend to get updates for a crazy amount of time -- too bad it's not in the contract when you buy a new tablet, it would certainly be an important decision point for me.
Not the "best TV" by Nexus7 · 2019-01-10 03:21 · Score: 1

The best? That's a high bar. TV stations broadcast Full HD over the air, and this is incapable of receiving them. Sure, the TV monitor you connect to may receive them, but then you're using its tuner and app to watch.
1. Re:Not the "best TV" by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 05:14 · Score: 0
  
  It can handle it when you pair it with a network TV tuner like an inexpensive HomerunHD. You are able to view live TV and access a TV guide as well as DVR functionality.