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Nexus Player is Google's first Android TV device

Nexus Player is Google's first Android TV device

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Google tries to take over your living room, again

By Jacob Kastrenakes, a deputy editor who oversees tech and news coverage. Since joining The Verge in 2012, he’s published 5,000+ stories and is the founding editor of the creators desk.

Source Nexus Player

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The first device running Google's new Android TV platform will be the Nexus Player, a set-top streaming box made by Google and Asus. The device is being announced today, and it's Google's latest in a very long line of attempts to take over your TV. Though Google's past attempts have been fairly unsuccessful, Android TV looks like it could be a different story. Announced back in June, Android TV has a good-looking interface that allows you to stream music, movies, and TV shows. You can also play Android games on it, and it can mimic the Chromecast's features too, all of which make it sound like it could turn out to be a useful little box.

Voice search right from the remote

The Nexus Player takes the shape of a sleek-looking puck around 4.7-inches in diameter. It comes with a tiny remote with just a few buttons on it, one of which allows you to enable a microphone to perform a voice search — it's actually a lot like what you'd find with Amazon's Fire TV. The box includes 8GB of internal storage and is able to stream over 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which is the newest standard out there right now. The Nexus Player also supports a game controller, but it's sold separately.

Google will sell the Nexus Player for $99 and the game controller for $39, according to Recode. The Nexus Player will be available to preorder on Friday through the Google Play Store.

Update October 15th, 4:15PM ET: The Nexus Player will only be available through the Google Play Store. Google originally stated that it would be available in stores beginning this November, but it now says that this will not be the case.

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