Google confirms the Nexus Player has been discontinued
Google has ceased direct sales of its Nexus Player set-top box. The hockey puck-shaped device, manufactured by Asus, has been unavailable from major third-party retailers like Best Buy for months. And after a brief Google Store restock …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Nexus Player's exit closes a short international run: Google had pushed the Asus-made box beyond North America into Japan and the UK at £80 just over a year ago (its first market outside North America, then the UK launch). Its disappearance from Best Buy preceded the formal end of Google Store sales, so this confirmation mostly ratifies what retailers already knew.
It also extends a pattern: the 2013 Nexus 7 was retired the year before, and Google's living-room hardware would later be culled again when it stopped making the Chromecast after intense competition, pivoting toward a premium device it benchmarked against Nvidia's Shield.
First-order effects
- Asus loses its manufacturing slot for Google's Android TV reference device, leaving the platform without its flagship first-party box.
- Buyers who want a Google-branded Android TV device now have to rely on remaining retail stock or third-party sellers, since direct Google Store sales have ceased.
Second-order effects
- Android TV's momentum shifts onto partners' own hardware — the Shield-style premium boxes Google itself later cited as the standard to strive toward — rather than a cheap Google-branded reference puck.
- Google's retreat from the low-cost set-top segment hands rivals in that price band less pressure from a subsidized first-party competitor.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Nexus 7, Nexus Player, then Chromecast all retired — Google's consumer hardware strategy structurally favors fewer, higher-priced devices over disposable reference hardware, with each generation's exit clearing shelf space for the next premium play.
The trend: Google is steadily culling its low-cost first-party hardware line — tablets, streaming pucks — in favor of fewer premium devices built with partners.