"What is Amazon Fire TV?
Amazon Fire TV is a tiny box that connects your HDTV to a world of online entertainment. With a huge selection of TV episodes and movies, voice search that actually works, plus exclusive features like ASAP and Amazon FreeTime, it’s the easiest way to enjoy Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, low-cost movie rentals, music, photos, games, and more."
Is that a shot at XB1?
This is going to wipe out ouya, roku, etc. But Chromecast and Apple TV will likely upgrade to allow strong gaming applications or simply continue to be their own niche.
A bigger outlook is where this will be a year or so from now. Will the game streaming of bigger/more core console type of games come at current MSony/Nintendo levels? If so, we could see a big surge in this product over time.
From what I've read apparently they are also coming out with an app to turn your smartphone or other touch screen devices into controllers. Multiplayer console gaming for such a low price might not be too bad.
| Soundwave said: If Apple makes their own version with game controller support ... it is so on. If Apple decides to make their own version though, that will be the one most people lean towards. |
The question is whether or not Nintendo can pull this off as smooth as the big 3 (Amazon, Google, Apple). My bet is on no. Even MS has a hard time pulling it off with the big behemoths. Nintendo definitely has the games content covered, but they are way, way, way behind in terms of media and I'm not sure even catching up is enough as there is no incentive for current users to switch over to Nintendo's offering.
I have done some extra research and rumors flying around is that apple will definitely have games on their apple tv 4. I will be majorly suprised if it doesn't. It's also worth noting that Apple has the major advantage here with plenty of exclusive iOS games like XCOM and Civ Rev. Opening up their games app on Apple TV could make them the front runner here again. Google will have its own set top box, but it might not be chromecast 2. Basically google wants chromecast tech to be coming natively on future TVs, so they will probably just license it to partners like they do android now. Google's set top box is rumored to have games as well as come with a camera built in for hangouts (right now skype has 100% of that market in the living room/tv, AFAIK).
| bevochan said: Unfortunately, this almost definitely means that Amazon prime videos are not coming to android or getting chromecast support. |
Seems to be the case, but I think this is a mistake on Amazon's part. A big one at that. Amazon prime video aims to compete with netflix and needs to be in every device like netflix. Furthermore, by having it on playstation/xbox/iOS, the app is already out of amazon's closed ecosystem. I'm sure amazon misses a lot of possible rentals from customers due to not having it on android and, to a lesser extent, chromecast.
| superchunk said: This is going to wipe out ouya, roku, etc. But Chromecast and Apple TV will likely upgrade to allow strong gaming applications or simply continue to be their own niche. A bigger outlook is where this will be a year or so from now. Will the game streaming of bigger/more core console type of games come at current MSony/Nintendo levels? If so, we could see a big surge in this product over time. |
I agree that Roku and especially Ouya are as good as dead. Amazon, Apple, Google will dominate this space and disrupt the console space IMO. There's always room for more players, just like there are in mobile OS, but the chunk of the marketshare will go to those 3 guys.
Regarding bigger games, most 2014 high end phones and tablets are close in power to 360/PS3. FireTV, in terms of power, is apparently > Vita and close to the 360. If AppleTV4 and Nexus TV have similar specs, with annual upgrades where they eventually will be > PS3/360 in terms of power, then one could expect at least one big publisher to release a cross platform game for them. The best bet would be COD 2014 or COD 2015 ported over (when they'll still have PS360 versions). The big differential here is that you could play your game and save your progress anywhere it you could have cross platform multiplayer sessions. That means that, in the same match, you could have FireTV players going against AppleTV players going against Nexus TV players.
PS controler wants be. Not interested.
Conina said:
Yes, you can access Amazon Instant Video with many different devices... I tried it on my SmartTV, my Blu-ray-player, my PS3, my PS4, my Wii U, my iPad and my Kindle Fire. The thing is... it works best on the Kindle Fire. For example, if you continue a movie or tv-episode, the stream starts much faster... probably it gets buffered instantly when you turn on the device. When you tap on the screen, you get more information than on the other devices (the name of the episode / movie) and a button to jump directly to the next episode:
For comparison, here is the iPad-interface of that app:
And the whole Kindle-GUI is content-based and not application-based, which can be very conveniant for consuming content. When you start the device, the last content you played/watched/read/listened to is in the focus. Just tap on it and you can just continue where you left:
Or you can tap on the words on the top of the display and jump to your games, apps, music library, instant video, photos or documents on the device... from there just tap on them and they start the standard app, there are also the buttons "cloud" or "shop" available to download or buy additional stuff. Sure, you can install and start other media-apps and then search and open the content you want within them, but Amazon has made the process to get to your content very streamlined and convenient. |
None of which is worth (to me) the extra $99 and having to add yet another device to my collection. As I have said this is Amazon and they have a lot of customers. So perhaps that will help move these for those who don't buy consoles or other streaming devices I just don't see it having widespread appeal.
People who hang around in gaming forums will not be Amazon's main target group. There are many millions people out there, who will love a simple/foolproof/intuive GUI and convenient way to buy and use their content (movies, music, photos, casual games) on their TVs. Most SmartTVs and android sticks fail miserably when it comes to intuitive operation.
This system will certainly do just well thanks to Dora!
---Member of the official Squeezol Fanclub---
pezus said:
The mobile version is already out... |
My point still stands...
-CraZed- said:
None of which is worth (to me) the extra $99 and having to add yet another device to my collection. As I have said this is Amazon and they have a lot of customers. So perhaps that will help move these for those who don't buy consoles or other streaming devices I just don't see it having widespread appeal. |
It is going to have very widespread appeal there are many people who would want a media centric device that can play games and exactly what has Amazon ever pushed that has failed? Just being on the home page of their website guarantees pretty widespread success
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