Is The Nexus Player Soon To Be Discontinued?

by bacchus101

The Play store has them out of stock. From that page it points to vendor partners:

Walmart: Out of stock

Newegg: Out of stock

Tigerdirect: Only available in Guaynabo, PR store.

SlingTV: Points back to Play Store.

Staples: 404

Best Buy $80 a unit which is their highest price since July.

Edit: Target just went out of stock 12/10/2015

Is this a case of them not anticipating nexus player demand, or did they just clear the shelves for an upcoming product?

I'm in the market for an android tv device but I'm growing increasingly concerned about the lifespan and support of these devices after being burned by a google tv. The nexus player seems a bit underwhelming, but at $50 its good deal (not $80) if I can get a couple of years out of it. The Forge looks dead or close to dead. The NVIDIA Shield specs out to be an amazing device, but it's overkill for my application which would be just streaming. There doesn't really seem to be any other viable options beyond buying actual televisions.

Are we hypothetically expecting more stand alone devices to come to market in the next 3-6 months?

Battle_Blazer

Target is selling them on clearance for $15. Best Buy has been selling them for $50 since October.

Andrroid

I'm in the market for an android tv device but I'm growing increasingly concerned about the lifespan and support of these devices after being burned by a google tv.

Android TV is young but it is a much better platform than Google TV. Google TV was effectively a beta test. Android TV is a fork from Android, the most popular mobile OS in the world. Because it is a fork, it will be easier for Google to iterate on it and for devs to make their apps compatible (though many can be sideloaded and work just fine). It is also not the only fork. AndroidWear is another example of Google taking their prize OS to the next level.

Unfortunately Android TV is in a similar spot that Android was in ~5 years ago; chicken/egg scenario. Why get an Android TV if there are no apps? But if no one buys it, there are no customers, so why build apps? The ecosystem will grow though. Nvidia is heavily invested. Google has insured us they are dedicated to development (and have some updates on the way). Razer has said they are going to redouble their efforts.

Most importantly though is the TVs with built-in Android TV. Most TVs these days that are larger than 48" come with "smart TV" capabilities. Those capabilities however require investment in development and maintenance. I predict that in the next year or so, we will see a large shift from OEMs developing their own operating systems to just using Android TV(similar to what we saw with Android). The open source nature of Android TV is perfect for this evolving market. Dedicated set top boxes will likely perform better, but I think it will be the TVs themselves that keep the platform alive.

tl;dr don't be afraid of Android TV, the nexus player is a fine streamer and I expect it will continue to get support (Google will likely not release an update until fall 2016 at the earliest). Keep in mind that it is also running the latest version, 6.0.

WazWaz

They wouldn't have updated it to 6.0 if it was to be discontinued.

foundfootagefan

More like 10-11 months.

dsherman73

Get the Amazon fire TV which is essentially an Android TV box Amazonafied. You can still side load apps and stuff and for $99 it's got plenty of horse power for your needs.

mrksutter

The Nexus Player has been discontinued for a while now. I inquired with Asus about becoming a reseller for Nexus Players and was told that the device is permanently discontinued. No word on whether or not Asus will be making a new Android TV device.