Nexus Player isn’t expected to reach Europe until next year

Nexus Player. Photo: Google

Nexus Player. Photo: Google

If you added a Nexus Player to your Christmas list following its official unveiling earlier this month, you might as well cross it off if you live outside of the U.S. Sources familiar with Google’s plans say the device won’t be showing its face in other parts of the world until it arrives in Europe in early 2015.

Priced at just $99 and packing some terrific features, the Nexus Player seems like an ideal Christmas gift for TV junkies. And with the holiday shopping season such a lucrative one, we expected Google to be pushing to make the device available in as many markets as it could this fall.

But according to Dutch blog TechTastic, Nexus Player will remain a U.S. exclusive until next year.

“The Google Nexus Player is in the United States from November 3 available, but the set-top box from ASUS nowhere available in the rest of the world,” the report reads, machine translated. “According to our source, it is intended that the Nexus Player will be released in Europe early in 2015.”

According to the sources, it’s not that Google cannot produce enough to serve other markets, but it wants to first ensure that there is plenty of content in place for international customers before they are able to walk into a store and buy a Nexus Player. After all, no one wants a set-top box that offers very little content.

Google doesn’t just want to provide the usual streaming services like Netflix and Play Movies, but those from local sources as well — such as BBC iPlayer in the U.K. — the sources claim.

I was certainly hoping I wouldn’t have to wait long to get a Nexus Player in the U.K., but at least Google won’t keep us waiting 7 months like Amazon did with Fire TV.