Google officially sends the Nexus Player to the grave, putting an end to the company's first Android TV device.
As a little refresher, Asus manufactured it, and the set-top box made the headlines back in 2014. Also, it's the Mountain View-based company's first successful attempt to invade living rooms here and there, as it's preceded by the not-so-successful Google TV. At this point, it's worth noting that the Chromecast became a smash hit in 2013, essentially making up for the shortcomings of the smart TV.
Confirmation of this discontinuation comes from The Verge, where the news website got in touch with a Google spokesperson. The gist of it is that the Nexus Player is no longer available at the Google Store and major third-party retailers such as Best Buy, Newegg and Walmart, to name a few, but its product page is still up and running at the time of this writing. In other words, the only way to get one nowadays is to find sellers that kept a couple in stock or customers who are looking to get rid of their used units.
In light of this development, it should be cleared up that the Android TV will remain alive and kicking across homes, as the platform is not only preloaded on the Google-branded set-top box but also on modern Sony and Sharp TVs.
"Android TV continues to be a living room favorite as one of the best smart TV experiences. We are pleased with the success and have seen millions of activations so far," the Google rep tells The Verge.
As a testament to that, Xiaomi is going to release the Mi Box, a media streaming device that runs on Android TV, houses a quad-core chip and supports 4K video at buttery-smooth 60 fps.
With all said and done, it's still sad to see the Nexus Player getting pulled from reputable stores, even though it didn't exactly wow the people.
