Amazon's Android game-console/TV-box game controller.

From The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/14/5507924/amazon-set-top-box-game-controler-photo-leak

The whole design of it looks like the back of the Kindle Fire HDX. Very angular. It stands out but is not my favorite thing. Thing is I never have to look at a Kindle Fire HDX's back, just the screen which looks fantastic. This doesn't look great, but I guess that doesn't matter. If it feels good, and has good build quality, then maybe its worth Jeff begrudgingly purchasing and then bemoaning on the podcast.

Android video game consoles are not a thing, why do people keep trying to make them a thing? I guess the answer is already self evident. Video games are the killer app of the living room computer (like cellphones for the pocket which erased every other kind of pocket computer), so if you want to build a living room computer, it has to at least try and do video games properly. And if you made it android, it would come with a bunch of apps and games already. Even if those games are crap in the living room.

This is probably going to tie into Prime somehow, and therefore they'll probably convince me to try it.

Though Prime is about to undergo a serious price hike.

As for the controller itself, well, hopefully it's more comfortable than it looks.

I understand the need to bundle it with a controller, but at this point there are four USB based controllers out there in abundant supply made by companies that are devoted to hardware. Hell, the Sony ones are Bluetooth already. Unless you're going to make something crazy like the Steam controller, why not just put a gigantic sticker on the box that says "Buy a real controller, goddammit"?

Yeah, I got that email. But $20 more a year isn't awful. Borrowing one Kindle book a month, streaming some tv shows, and free two day shipping all still make it worth while. If they add some sort of game streaming service onto that, then cool. I'm not entirely optimistic, but I'm interested.

Because they don't want to encourage sales competition, of course. Which is in itself a paradoxical concept considering that Amazon built its business on retail merchandise including video game hardware. I have to wonder what the console makers are thinking about Amazon's move into the game hardware space.

The controller looks fine but it just seems so… generic.

I'm surprised there's no patent/copyright/whatever on the A,B,X,Y button labeling. Of course, it was Nintendo's first with the SNES, but now it's the XBox standard so I'd assumed they'd make it some kind of proprietary something. But since it is so standard now, at least Amazon is using it. Just that alone is a billion times better than O,U,Y,A.

Looks like they didn't really try anything new with this. It's basically a 360 controller with enough subtle differences to not get sued.

well..... my prime account was renewed by accident, I might as well accept this thing..... remember the first few years of Amazon Streaming movie service..... it's gonna be like that but with Angry Birds and Fieldrunners.

Maybe it's more that it would be ridiculous to sell a games console without a controller. A machine's controller is one of biggest pieces of branding.

The space got crowded fast though. Now there are two consoles, by this time next year, there'll be five. Valve's rejiggered PCs, and Amazon's and Google's rejiggered phone/tablet things.