Nvidia Shield TV

As we all know, the Nintendo Switch and Nvidia Shield TV share the same chipset – the Tegra X1. Nvidia leveraged its knowledge of mobile chipsets to held Nintendo create its hybrid console, and as a result, hasn't refreshed its own Shield line in what feels like forever. That appears to be changing this year.

Evidence has been discovered within the Google Play Developer Console’s Device Catalogue that strongly suggests that Nvidia is producing a new Shield TV console. The previous model's codename was "darcy", and a new entry has appeared with the codename "mdarcy".

Developers working on the Tegra kernel have told XDA Developers that they believe the refreshed CPU and GPU combo – called "t210b01" at this stage, but still believed to be part of the Tegra X1 family – will boast “better power usage” and a “higher maximum GPU clock”, the latter of which will provide a noticeable boost in performance.

This ties in with discoveries made a few months ago, when a custom ROM developer dug inside Nvidia’s public source code release and found references to “stormbreaker” and “friday” – the former a new joypad controller and the latter a remote.

An Nvidia spokesperson responded to the findings by saying: “We can’t comment on which codenames refer to product concepts that are active vs which ones are inactive, as it can be fluid. However, I can confirm that none of the codenames refer to products that have launched publicly.”

This news links in rather neatly with the rumours that Nintendo is working on an "upgraded" Switch console, which will be released alongside a more cost-focused edition of the system. It would make sense for Nvidia to produce an updated Shield TV system if it's already working on a refreshed X1 for Nintendo.

Nintendo has yet to confirm that any new Switch SKUs are in development, but its recent shift of production has added more weight to these reports.

[source xda-developers.com]