Google's New Nexus Player Makes No Sense While It Still Sells The Chromecast

There were rumours recently that Google was ending the Nexus range this year. That might have been the case, but the brand has had a stay of execution while Google licks its wounds over the reported collapse of Android Silver. As things stand, the Nexus name might stick around for a while yet, especially if this current crop of products does well. We all know about the Nexus 6 and 9, and some people have mentioned the Nexus Player, but no one yet seems to have pointed out how utterly nonsensical it is.

Google has, you see, been trying to crack TV for a long time. And honestly, the Chromecast is pretty much the perfect product for most people. It's cheap at around $35, and as long as you have an Android or iOS device, or a Chromebook or other laptop running Google's Chrome, then you can make use of one. Chromecast works because it's simple; plug it into an HDMI socket on your TV, and give it some power and you're away. All it then needs is the password for your Wi-Fi and you can start sending stuff to it. It takes about three minutes.

But Google doesn't seem satisfied with Chromecast, perhaps because it makes the company very little money. It's not tied to Google's Play music and movie services, so you can use your Netflix subscription, or even Plex for video sourced elsewhere. That's an issue, because for a cheaper devices, Google will want to have a high attachment rate for its own pay services.

Google has tried more elaborate home streaming before, both with first- and third-party boxes. First, there was Google TV. A handful of manufacturers built boxes, no one bought them, and those boxes are now gathering dust. Then there was the Nexus Q, it was announced at Google I/O in 2012, given away to attendees of that conference and then cancelled before any shipped. Customers who pre-ordered were given the device for free, because early reviews of the device were so bad.

Now we're getting the Nexus Player, a device built by Asus and running Google's new Android TV platform. It will offer access to the Google Play store for not just music, movies and TV shows, but also select Android games. An optional controller will be sold to allow you to play on your TV. And this is where the whole thing starts to fall apart. Android games don't work on TVs, because Android games are aimed at touchscreens. This has always been the problem trying to put Android on a TV, it's a touchsceen OS, it's not at all well-suited to TV use, especially for gaming.

There are, of course, some reasons the Nexus Player makes sense. For one thing, it will have some processing power of its own. Chromecast doesn't because that device is something of a cheat; it relies on a simple video stream being pushed to it via the internet, say, for Netflix. The Nexus Player, on the other hand, would allow you to stream from a NAS on your network. Chromecast can only do this if you have a streamer that can transcode video on the fly, like a powerful computer or high-end NAS drive.

Gaming too, would be practical on the Nexus Player, because it's a reasonably high-spec quad-core, 1.8GHz Intel Atom processor. You can't really game on the Chromecast, because it has no real processing power, and while you can stream from a phone, the latency is just too great for it to work well. But that question about Android games remains, because for the most part they simply aren't designed to be played with a games console controller. When I think about the games I enjoy on Android, like Monument Valley or Super Hexagon, I don't see them being any better, and in some cases much worse, with a controller. On this, I remain to be convinced, but who knows Google might have it all figured out this time.

Ultimately, Google's Nexus Player suffers from many of the same problems as many of Google's products. It's a great idea, and well-designed at a reasonable price - it costs $140 with the controller - but it won't attract an audience. Those who want to stream from their Android Netflix app already have a Chromecast, what on earth is going to persuade them to buy this? Anyone looking for a big-screen gaming experience is going to find far better options than Android games designed for phones and tablets. Heck, even a Nintendo Wii would give you more bang-for-buck.

Perhaps Google's real problem is that the Chromecast is just too good. It offers too much, at too low a price. I'll be fascinated to see what tricks Google has up its sleeve for the Nexus Player, and I hope I get the chance to review it, because I'm always very happy to be proven wrong.