[hershel]

One interesting part of the story is amazon having a sub $300 console that competes directly with Sony and Microsoft.

My guess about that that it would be:

(a) a console financed by ads or amazon product sales on the tv

(b)A weaker console with quality content being offered through cloud gaming

(c) A combination of a,b. Also this console will be somehow tied to prime.

And my guess that the price would be substantially less than $300.

Does anybody have other rumors or guesses about that ?

[bentcorner]

When Amazon competes with itself the software side tends to lose. In my experience the Kindle App has been lackluster, which is surprising considering Amazon's development of the kindle and assumed book-loving internal culture (maybe that's not there anymore?). Stanza is good but was bought by Amazon and (again, from what I saw) nothing was done with it.

Prime Video is great on iOS but has a very very odd lack of presence on Android, despite being available on the Kindle Fire.

Kindle HD/HDX devices are unable to install apps from the Google Play store without rooting or other technical workarounds.

My point with these is that there appears to be a history of Amazon acting in favor of their own platforms and applying a strategy that encourages users to "buy in" to more Amazon.

Amazon's video game digital delivery service has proven to be price-competitive with Steam, but downloading games directly from Amazon is a bare-bones affair.

If Amazon wants to own more of the living room I'm guessing that:

- They will want to get out of the business of being a Steam key reseller if they have their own console

- Seeing as they've acquired a game developer it's plausible they produce content that is available only in the Amazon app store and not Google play. Over time this may become Amazon-console exclusive as well.

- Prime Video will continue to be offered on other platforms but will get less attention over time in favor of adding features to a Amazon-console version of Prime Video (I am honestly surprised that the iOS version is so good)

As far as pricing and ads, I would expect to see a dashboard with heavy tie ins to Prime Video and Amazon's App Store. Maybe even allow purchasing of merchandise related to the media you're consuming (just watched Transformers? Buy a t-shirt or play the video game now!). I'd like to see a price less than $300 - a Kindle HDX 7" 64GB Wifi is $300, if you omit the screen and battery and add more storage (I don't know the cogs of those things) you might be able to stay under that.

[GFischer]

The article itself links to some rumors :)

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/28/amazons-android-console-to-l...

http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-rumored-to-be-working-on-an-andr...

It sounds reasonable, based on their previous Kindle work. My own speculation is that It'll probably be priced much cheaper than U$ 300. One rumor even speculates about U$ 99.

[stonemetal]

How about a steam box with custom integration for amazon prime video streaming and buying digital downloads from amazon.

[hershel]

Interesting. With the new intel processors you could get a $250 decent steam box. Amazon can get it for less,and than subsidize it some more and get it to a good price with a lot of really attractive content.

Still all signs point to android.

[sroerick]

This is probably their strategy. They built an app store for android. They want to build custom content for a steam box.