Report: Amazon Android Console Set to Launch This Year

[Alex Co]

Report: Amazon Android Console Set to Launch This Year

Online retailer Amazon is allegedly entering the console space with an Android console this year and will be priced at less than $300.

Are you limited with your console options with the Wii U, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Valve's soon-to-be-released Steam Machines? If so, there's another gaming console to consider and this one is from online retail giant Amazon. According to VG247's multiple sources [http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/28/amazons-android-console-to-launch-this-year-priced-below-300/], Amazon will launch its Android-powered console later this year at a price below $300 and will allegedly compete directly with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

The still unnamed console will be able to stream and download games, music, movies and TV shows, much like its counterparts out now today. Senior publishing sources are also said to be meeting with Amazon for a briefing on the hardware, with popular Android and iOS games being used to demo the unit. As for the console itself. it's said to be created in collaboration with subsidiary Lab 126, which also designed Amazon's Kindle devices. Reportedly, the demo unit being shown around is roughly the same size as the PlayStation 1 redesign, colored in gray, oblong in shape with sharp edges. Though it's also expected a makeover will take place before the console hits retail.

Rumblings of Amazon developing its own console OUYA which just dropped its price to $60 late last year. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126702-Rumor-Amazon-Working-on-Android-Console]

Do you think the video game market can handle another player in the console wars, and how will Amazon triumph where others have failed?

Source: VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/28/amazons-android-console-to-launch-this-year-priced-below-300/]

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[9thRequiem]

I'm sure there's a lot smarter people than me at Amazon, and they have a definite plan etc, but there is no way on earth I would ever spend that much on an Android console.

Considering there'll almost certainly be a plethora of bug-riddled shovelware that will eclipse any diamonds in the rough that may be on there, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Given how the Ouya has turned out with a fraction of the price, I'm not sure where they think the appeal will come from.
Android developers will, as the Ouya has shown, target their games at where the big market is, ie phone/tablet hardware. Having $300 worth of power is just going to go to waste.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Given how the Ouya has turned out with a fraction of the price, I'm not sure where they think the appeal will come from.

I think they might be hoping to take the Xbone approach of marketing it more as a streaming box for entertainment than a games console. I'm suprised by the price too, three times the price of the Ouya and not far off a PS4.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it sounds silly because there are literally hundreds of TV/gaming android boxes out right now, none at that price.
But at the same time Amazon has a user base of several hundred million, by sheer statistics they can't lose with this and they will have their store right in your living room that way... it's evil genius that.

 

[Baldr]

If they market it as a multimedia box first, video game platform second, I think it may be a good box, but $300 is still a high price negates that. At around the $100 to tell people it can play Amazon Instant video, take from your Amazon/Kindle/Audible Library and put it to your TV, oh and it can play some video games than they may have something special.

 

[chiefohara]

Not something thats appealing to me, especially at that price, but i guess they have something else up their sleeve or planned for it. Android games are not worth a 300 dollar pricetag by any means

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Isn't this just like the Ouya? Anyway, while I don't think the industry can support too many consoles, I have no issue with more being made available. The fact is the price point makes it significantly cheaper than the main rivals and Amazon has a huge user base. Sony and MS have forgotten that consoles need to be cheap and simple and are now offering closed system PCs at the same cost as one too.

For those with young kids, they get simple games and a set top box. If done right, it could nab the market Nintendo cornered and dominated with the Wii, then lost with the release of the Wii U.

 

[laggyteabag]

Can anyone please tell me what the deal is with the sudden rise in Android consoles? I mean surely no one can be stupid enough to spend $300 just to play mobile games on their TV. I can sort of understand the Ouya with its $60 price tag, but a large amount of people already own smart phones, and if you look in the right places you can get a second hand 360 or PS3 for less than $100.

 

[Stryc9]

Well, Amazon does have their own app marketplace that they can force the console to use exclusively and then crack down on so much of the crappy apps and scams. Amazon also has the resources to do this thing, it's just a matter of seeing if they actually do it.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

My computer is my console. So I have no interest in OUYA, Steam Box, XBONE, PS4, et cetera.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Well if it's like a Kindle - meant for access to and delivery of content already available in other formats (dvds, paper books, cds all still exist, but we get them digitally formatted from Amazon on a Kindle easily if we prefer that) then I think I would quite like it. Not for myself - I have a number of consoles already and plans to maybe get a gaming PC at some point for the games I like to play - but for my in-laws. They are fighting all the time now over time on their computer because they are both into a whole slew of android games, facebook games, free to play stuff, and the like. Casual gaming extreme, but still a big part of their downtime at home. Their laptops they have for work or whatever don't do well with even those games - they run hot and even though I put in WiFi for them recently, the TV being "smart" doesn't make them any better with a wand remote system to run games on it. If they could hook something like this up to the TV in the living room, maybe they wouldn't both be crammed into the office hovering over the computer lol

Plus, heck, some of those little games a fun for little people - small time investment, easy to learn in a short sitting even for basic players, perfect for an afternoon visit from my toddler nephew.

Edit: I guess my point is that I can see a market for something like this, but that market is probably not us specifically, as in people who already have console solutions to their gaming needs. The Ouja's marketing failing - if you can call it that - was aiming at us. Of course, they were trying to do a bit more conceptually, but Amazon doesn't seem like they are shooting for more than a Kindle:Games Edition type result. I can see where people would want that.

 

[Ratty]

I'm not saying another crash is coming, but if I'd been alive in 1983 I think I might be having flashbacks right now. Talk about over-saturating the market.

 

[viranimus]

Honestly I think I would rather go with any of the HTPC android boxes out there that come in at about 40-100$ before I would buy a 300$ box from amazon.

The ONLY way I would consider otherwise is if they decided to upend steam in the process by finding a way of making its digital download games platform playable on said box, but given that the largest bulk of games they sell via DD are windows based, that does not seem even remotely likely. If they could pull it off I would likely buy without hesitation.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

No, No, No. We don't need another Android console. We need tablets with HDMI out which most do and games with better controller support so one or two can play on a big screen with a single tablet. Some games just won't work with a controller by design, which makes this thing, the OUYA, and any other set top android box useless for them. Others have wonky to decent controller support but then requires touchscreen swiping, touch panel controllers won't work great if at all since you have to hit specific points of the screen. Only a few have full controller support and the OUYA and it's direct competition didn't increase that percentage like they said it would.

I'm not saying another crash is coming, but if I'd been alive in 1983 I think I might be having flashbacks right now. Talk about over-saturating the market.

Oh, it's coming. It won't be 1983 but it will affect at least anyone with serious investment in the andriod and ios market. It will be like the dot com crash. The few successful companies will weather it off and regain their foothold, but the majority will be SOL. It might even kick off another crash only less drastic that android with PC/consoles with the emphasis in on yearly FPS dude-bro brown shooters and lack of innovation while pushing graphics and budgets through the roof. This is why I never went to college to make games. Even 8 years ago I thought too many companies were sprouting up and saturating the market. Android and ios probably just absorbed some of the market share to delay a crash, but they're also hitting their limits.

 

[Strazdas]

Can anyone please tell me what the deal is with the sudden rise in Android consoles? I mean surely no one can be stupid enough to spend $300 just to play mobile games on their TV. I can sort of understand the Ouya with its $60 price tag, but a large amount of people already own smart phones, and if you look in the right places you can get a second hand 360 or PS3 for less than $100.

It may have to do with the fact that Android platform has the highest install base in the world, easily beating iOS users in terms of sheer population. The regular consoles are nothing in units sold or profit made in comparison. Android is the single most profitable gaming platform on the planet. so its obviuos people want a slice of that pie.
but you are right - most people already own smartphones, thats why Ouya and this amazong ocnsole will fail - they dont understand what made android popular to begin with.

My computer is my console. So I have no interest in OUYA, Steam Box, XBONE, PS4, et cetera.

funny thing, your computer can do more than all of them, combined.

I'm not saying another crash is coming, but if I'd been alive in 1983 I think I might be having flashbacks right now. Talk about over-saturating the market.

its not coming. it will never come. gaming is way way way more diverse than it was in 1983. a single market may crash, gaming as a whole wont. even in 1983, the big and evil crash was quite limited to US only and the rest of the world continued gaming on. you may see a mobile gaming market go back down, but thats not whole gaming. the whole crash prophecy usually compes from people that think consoles are the only form of gaming and that once any of thme do badly the world will stop turning.

No, No, No. We don't need another Android console. We need tablets with HDMI out which most do and games with better controller support so one or two can play on a big screen with a single tablet.

what we basically need is tablets controller support. they can already do everything else. you can stream from your pc into your TV with a tablet, or from a tablet to tv, or even from PC to tablet while your on a train ride. the problem is they dont seem to like to work with regular controllers at all. hopefully once Sony releases official Dualshock 4 drivers this may change.