Android TV is just beginning to bring about a massive amount of developer support. It's quickly claimed roughly 8-10% of the TV market and more apps and games are being supported constantly.

As a writer for an Android TV news site, I'm in contact with a lot of game and app developers. Some great indie devs are excited about the platform and are finding it really easy to support. It gives users the great ecosystem of Android and Google Play on a TV. There's a lot of things happening on this end.

The Leanback launcher just got an update. Recommendations will soon be updated to be more accurate. Voice search is still very impressive. Live channels is a unique feature to the platform that will continue to get better.

Ultimately Android TV is a platform much like any other entertainment system. However, its open nature and ease of developing has allowed it to become a quick success within the past year. Don't forget that's it's been just a little over a year. As more users get it, more developers will adjust their apps.

Is a working Android home entertainment center just too much to ask?

No. And as a Nexus Player owner, I have one. It works great! It's got everything I wanted in a media center: Google Play Music works natively, and it has all the other big content providers. Plus I can Google Cast to it. The latter point was probably the one that pushed us over into buying the Nexus instead of a new Roku.

I can't speak to Nvidia's offering, personally, but I know their Shield tablet has good reviews, and I'd be surprised if the Shield TV wasn't similarly high quality.

There's no such thing as Android TV gaming.

Well...there is, but if you're expecting a lot of brand new big-release titles, you're going to be sorely disappointed. As you would be on Apple TV and Amazon's Fire TV ^^AKA: ^^the ^^terrifying ^^Gary ^^Busey ^^slobber ^^box.

You have to keep in mind that most of these devices, while perfectly competent at moderate 3D rendering, don't have the same kind of power that current PCs or even current consoles do in the graphics department. Even Nvidia's equipment.

I've seen a decent number of Final Fantasy titles and stuff like that in the Play Store on my Nexus Player. But I really haven't tried any out. Even as a person who regularly plays games, I'm not particularly interested in gaming on that device.

Where the Shield would shine as far as gaming goes would be in streaming games from your PC. Nvidia's graphics cards and software are set up to enable that pretty easily (and to pass controller input back). They've also managed to port over a bunch of older titles to run natively. I know Portal and Half-Life 2 both saw releases for it.

It's not that Android TV devices couldn't be made with graphics capabilities that rival consoles or PCs. It's just that the price would rise to reflect that, and it would also start to rival that of a console or PC. Given the established console market and PC gaming market, it's just really unlikely to see a third entrant pull much weight. So you're probably going to mostly just see more casual games and less graphically intensive games.

TL;DR: For the majority of users, games are a side benefit rather than the core reason for ownership of the device. So games will take a back seat to video content.

---

---

There are also better ways to get your games on your TV.

If I could take a moment to kind of plug for setup that my partner and I have, you can get a Nexus Player for a pretty reasonable price anywhere from $60-100, depending on when/where you buy it, and you can get a Steam Link for $50. It does mean that you have two devices, but each of them is very good at what they're meant to do, and together they cost about half what the Shield does.

This has been working great for us, especially as it opens up our full Steam libraries to be played on the living room TV. (And it doesn't lock you into Nvidia graphics on the desktop.) Of course, if you're a person without a PC that has decent graphics capabilities, this isn't of much use to you. But if you are, and you're already invested in Steam...it's a superb option.

Give it time. Gaming is not a priority either.

I'm starting to feel like its amazing and what I've always wanted, and just beginning to get rolling. Purchased 5 (nexus players) recently

It is a little clunky and not as "pretty" as some other OS but it is growing on me. Hell, the Shield is an animal and for my needs the GEForce Now is an amazing service, its very fast and really never see any hangups, and the way it runs Kodi for me is outstanding.

That alone is a big win for me. But that's more specific to the Shield I know.

my harmony smart remote is great with shield tv. im coming from appletv2. plex is way better on the shield.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, OP. I've had my Shield for several months, and while it's good for Nvidia Game Streaming (most of the time), everything else is just so darn temperamental. It's an amazing machine in terms of horsepower, but the OS just feels like it's in beta stages. I know this is a vague statement, just don't feel like typing a novel at the moment. I find myself using my Apple TV 3 for all video apps (with the exception of Kodi). I have a new Apple TV 4 coming for Christmas, so I may just abandon my Shield altogether if I can stream PC games with Moonlight. Fingers crossed for an ATV Kodi app too in the near future.

RatRod is the only dev worth your time.