New Nvidia Shield TV could be on the cards – but your old Android box is getting more update love in the meantime

Nvidia released its current Shield TV and Shield TV Pro devices almost seven years ago – and yet it remains one of the best streaming platforms on the market.

That's thanks to the feature-packed Pro, specifically, being so far ahead of the crowd on its debut that others have only recently started catching up. Indeed, its AI-powered video upscaling technologies are still pretty unique.

But as loved as the streamer is, the clamour for a new, upgraded edition continues to grow. After all, Nvidia itself has better components these days, which it could use to build a faster, more capable set-top-box. And with the advent of Google TV over Android TV, it would make sense for the brand to up its game.

Will we see a new Nvidia Shield TV?

Thankfully, that seems to be possible. When recently speaking with Ars Technica, Nvidia's senior VP of hardware engineering, Andrew Bell, suggested that he'd like nothing better than to develop a new Shield TV.

"We're always playing in the labs, trying to discover new things,” he told the site.

“We’ve played with new concepts for Shield and we’ll continue to play, and if we find something we’re super-excited about, we’ll probably make a go of it."

What form it may take is anyone's guess right now, but with Apple also kicking its heels in releasing a new Apple TV box, there's definitely a gap in the market for a new, premium streaming device.

And with new video standards having been released in the last few years – with a few, such as Dolby Vision 2, yet to come – there's always the opportunity to cater for picture purists once more.

What Bell promises is that current owners won't be left behind – the company has no plans to stop updating the existing devices "any time soon". It released the latest Shield TV update (9.2.2) in November last year. It essentially pushed a few fixes to the machine, but followed a major feature update (9.2) that arrive 12 months ago.

One thing's for sure, if you do invest in a Shield TV today, you'll likely find it's still well worth the money.