Amazon Fire TV Revealed, Available Today

Amazon has finally unveiled their long-rumored top-box set, which will feature both streaming media and streaming games, dubbed the “Amazon Fire TV.” It is available right now, and can be bought for the fairly low price of $99.

The main selling point obviously seems to be the low price. But Amazon is also touting the power of the device, with it having it’s own special OS, a quad-core processor and 2 GB of RAM. Amazon Fire TV is also extremely small, which is very convenient for those without a lot of space in their entertainment centers.

It will come with the usual video apps you’d expect (Netflix, Pandora, Hulu and of course, Amazon’s own Prime service), but of interest to us here at GameSided is, of course, how the streaming of games on Amazon’s tiny little new box will work.

The article continues on to state that Amazon, in fact, is intending to compete with consoles, which in its view are, “Too expensive.” Amazon also knocked competitor Apple TV for numerous customer complaints related to its gaming service. Though it won’t come with a controller, there will be a controller sold for $40 separately, which had been leaked earlier.

Amazon also announced partnerships with EA, Disney, Gameloft and others, along with big console game devs such as Ubisoft and Take-Two to, “Craft a better gaming experience that would let users play a wide variety of games.” They used the monster hit Minecraft in order to demonstrate the gaming capabilities of the Fire TV and noted that “thousands” of games would be available for streaming starting next month.

Personally, I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude here. I don’t doubt that this will be a nifty little device, but odds are the “thousands” of games will be a mix of very old titles and Android garbage. I might be more easily sold when I start seeing some (hopefully good) original content developed by Amazon (or any third parties for that matter) exclusively for the box and am sure that the streaming works well because gaming is a lot more intensive (especially multiplayer online gaming) than simply streaming video.

What are your thoughts on the Amazon Fire TV, GameSided readers? Let us know in the comments below!