Amazon Getting into the Living Room With Fire TV [UPDATED]

I want it to say - Amazon has the best price on the new Fire TV, check it out here! http://amzn.to/TPHo6G

That controller looks clunky as hell.

@teenagejesussuperstar: he never proofreads, it's a shame.

Going by Jeff's comments that may happen. Sounds like he got one.

OUYA 4 LYFE!

@teenagejesussuperstar: What on earth makes you think that?

I hope jeff and the guys have one coming to unbox and review!

The writing in this article is terrible.

"No joke, but the Fire TV starts shipping today, and new customers can quality for a free month of Amazon Prime and Netflix."

You can do better Scoops!

Not since the Ouya has playing horrible phone games on my tv with a shitty knock-off controller been less appealing.

Same thing i was thinking lol.

If only this and netflix

was available worldwide.

Hmm.

Not another streaming box. Jeez.

Maybe I'm jaded because I'm not in the states, but internationally there's no reliable way to stream anything, especially in non english speaking countries.

When I watched a bunch of American TV shows I torrented everything. And I would pay for fucking Netflix if it was available.

Right now I am just interested in the tv side of it. I have been an abject fool for the cable companies so too very long enough. In short, I do not watch tv. As long as I can get whatever passes for PBS or equiv, and whatever else, I am happy. I do not even watch football anymore, but I strongly suspect if I wanted to w/ the Amazon set-up, I could.

But as for the gaming side of it, I will check back in say, 2 to 5 years. If they have it rocking, and I care.

If Kim Swift is onboard, I'll be there day one!

I guess we can speculate but if the Wii U is having trouble finding developers, I doubt big studios will invest in something so powerless. It's prob. just for mobile games on your TV.

Although after the reception Ouya had, how much hype could there be for another Android-powered (I assume) console?

Why do all the controllers have to be so damn boxy. Why dammit.

The problem with the Saturn stuff was that they pissed off a bunch of retailers and they refused to even sell the thing because of it. I think they just sent initial shipments to select retailers, which obviously pissed off the ones that weren't selected. Amazon doesn't have that problem here since they are the retailer.

With the Saturn you also had cases of people not being able to buy it, because they didn't have the money saved up for it(was 400 bucks). That could still be a problem with this Amazon thing, but not as bad since it's just 99 bucks.

I believe even developers got really pissed about the Saturn stuff and stopped making games for it.

While both cases involve surprise launches, they are really completely different scenarios.

Those buttons look nice but...what an awful shape. just rip off any good controller shape, GC, 360, PS4, no one will care.

I'm pretty positive that a TI-30X is enough to make the OUYA obsolete.

As neat as having an announcement and a release together sounds, wasn't this same strategy something of a disaster for the Sega Saturn?

I suppose communication has evolved substantially since then so the word can spread much more quickly, it's a multimedia device and not just intended for playing games on, and Amazon will presumably be handling the distribution themselves so that helps a lot too, but sacrificing pre-launch hype still seems like a remarkably risky move to make.

While I would agree that the Fire TV does have the advantage of not solely being marketed as a games device and probably will make its way into many living rooms as a media box, I don't think you can look at the talent Amazon is acquiring and dismiss it as an "after thought".

THE CONSOLE WILL RANDOMLY JAM UP AND REQUIRE YOU TO BUY ANOTHER ONE.

The fact this story is filed under Ouya cracks me up.

As to the product itself...um, okay? I probably would get it over a Roku, but I also have three or four gaming devices in my house already that stream most of these services already, to say nothing of my phone or my tablet. The price point is tempting, but what is the value add of this box over all others? As a budding content provider I would expect for Amazon to have been out the gate with something that made me want to buy this TODAY, and I'm sure that Amazon Game Studios group is cooking something up, but in the meanwhile a firm "wait and see" for me.

Releasing on day of announcement is pretty baller though.

Amazon is setting my living room on fire?!?!?! Oh wait, I read that wrong.

If you put stock Android on there, isn't that just Google's ecosystem? You traded one ecosystem for another. It's not necessarily any more open than Amazon is. Google's garden is no more or less walled than Amazon's is. It's just a nicer garden.

good luck with that. looking forward to the enormous belly flop sound we'll be getting out of this.

CLINT HOCKING AT AMAZON GAMES? SOMEONE ALERT THE IDLE THUMBS

That controller looks like it could crack some heads pretty easily.

I don't see the need for this. I am kind of sick of the walled gardens. I recently replaced the OS on my kindle fire hd with regular android 4.2 and it is infinitely better. More apps, games, faster etc... I am an amazon fan however after the kindle fire hd I no longer want to be tied to just that ecosystem.

I would much rather buy one of these with stock android and the regular play store. All we need is an indicator showing games are controller compatible. I feel android gets apps/games faster than the amazon forks if amazon gets it at all. I think i'll pass on this.

How can they get my money immediately? Have all the media apps + allow me to stream my steam games to the tv for $99 bucks! Id buy one immediately.

UPDATE:Kotaku reports Portal designer Kim Swift and Far Cry 2 designer Clint Hocking have both been hired by Amazon Game Studios.

What?

They've basically killed the Ouya with this.

Can't see this having much of an impact if it makes it over to the UK. I think the interest in Chromecast from myself and a number of friends shows there was a really desire for streaming to TV but I can't imagine the same interest in playing games on the telly.

So for the majority of people I think this'll just look like an expensive version of Chromecast or Roku. Then again, Amazon, like Facebook and Google, clearly need money sinks to dump taxable funds so, hell, why not try a TV box?

Not available in Canada? Really?

Interesting that they're putting any focus on games for a Roku/Apple TV competitor, but I think we've already figured out that charging more to play mobile-quality games on TV sucks. And that lineup is mostly family-focused, licensed shovelware. Though I don't think they're targeting any of us that play games on a $400+ console.

Building a better Ouya. Not a bad idea. The lack of a touchpad on that controller at least says that Amazon is looking for developers to do at least a minimal amount of work to convert their touch screen controls over to sticks and buttons.

As with Ouya, this needs good exclusives in order to interest gamers, and based on the letter from the CEO at the front of amazon.com at the moment I would say they are definatly pushing this as a streaming box first and a game system second (the controller is sold seperatly). Specs have double the ram of the Ouya but the CPU/GPU seem comparable.

They are willing to do what Apple has not with Apple TV. With the current popularity of Unity and Unreal 4's android support we could potentially see some pretty interesting stuff happen with this if Amazon can push this into people's homes, if people are willing to buy the controller, if that controller is good, if there is no glaring flaw in the system's architecture, if gamers care and if the general public is willing to try the games.

If this was available in Canada I would buy one right now.

That Sega Saturn launch strategy.

I just ordered one. Mainly bought it for the features that aren't gaming related and because I'm a big fan of amazon and want to support them. If good games come out, I'll definitely give them a chance.

@guanophobic: It isn't a console. It is a streaming media box for your TV that plays crappy app store games. Not something worth getting excited over even if you live in the US, which I do.

Only 8 GB of storage though... That concerns me as to their intentions... If they're intending to use this to make gaming through stream more established and accepted... I don't want that, I don't ever wanna give up that much control over what I play... If it's made with external drives in mind then I guess it's not as insidious but as of right, I'm not prepared to trust them just yet...

Such an elaborate April Fool's prank that it took an extra day of development.

@mormonwarrior: If you look at the amazon page for this thing, apparently it has more features than the others but it's the same price. Which, really, isn't that surprising since it's so late to this TV Box Party. I still don't really care about it, but if I had to choose between these dumbass things I'd probably go with this one I guess?

Gaming is an after though for this, whilst it was the main focus of the Ouya. It's like buying a smartphone, you don't buy it for games, that's just a bonus. Nobody would buy a smartphone just for games, that's stupid, and that's what Ouya was.

Cool, another console exclusively for the US.

Gotta take advantage of that Ouya money.