The Amazon FireTV is device for streaming movies, TV shows and music to your TV, functions that devices like the Roku products, AppleTV, and every game console can do. Unlike the AppleTV, and to a much greater extent than the Roku devices, the FireTV also has a substantial and growing game library. While the $99 FireTV doesn’t come with a game controller, the Fire Gaming Controller is only $39.99, which includes the $6.99 value Sev Zero exclusive game and $10 worth of Amazon credits to buy other games.
The hardware is beautifully simple, and the presentation is top-notch, from the packaging to the look and feel of the hardware to the polish and speed of the interface. Amazon was clearly trying to be premium in every phase, and succeeded. The interface is simple and fast, and the instant play feature seems almost magical. You see a movie you want to watch, select it and it’s playing (at least if it’s on Amazon). Eliminating the buffering time isn’t a huge thing, but it’s the kind of detail that makes you more satisfied with your purchase.
“We write the press release first, then design the hardware.”
The [a]list daily sat down with the FireTV and Amazon’s VP of games Mike Frazzini, as well as senior game design manager Ian Vogel, to discuss the FireTV and Amazon’s commitment to games.
Mike Frazzini has been at Amazon almost ten years, and with games since 2009. He’s proud of the device they’ve created. “There’s no other product that gives you all of that entertainment at that price point,” Frazzini said. “You can use the analogy of a smartphone or a tablet because they wanted to do email or read, and lo and behold they play a lot of games, too. We expect some customers to end up playing games even though that might not have been the primary reason they bought it, and we think a lot of other customers will buy it to play games and then do some of those other things too.”
The FireTV has a number of compelling features, like the voice search, the array of streaming services from Netflix to Pandora and more, Amazon FreeTime for parental controls, and integration with Amazon Cloud Drive for acess to your photos and home movies. “We write the press release first, then design the hardware,” said Frazzini. In other words, Amazon looked at the competition and picked out some key features to include with the FireTV, and made sure those features were solid.
While Amazon is producing its own games through Amazon Game Studios, the company is also working with major publishers and independent developers to bring games to the FireTV. “We also have Game Services, where we’re building cloud infrastructure services for game developers. Through AWS those services work across platforms,” Frazzini noted. “We’ve had the game studios for a couple of years, and just within the last year or so we’ve significantly increased our investment. Double Helix you saw, and we’ve hired people from the game industry who’ve bult some of the best games ever made. Ian worked on BioShock and Age of Empires, Clint [Hocking] and Kim [Swift] have done some great games, we’ve also got people who worked on games like Left 4 Dead and Forza. We certainly take games seriously within Amazon.”
Vogel believes the FireTV has something special that other devices don’t have. “We’ve got games from Telltale, Double Fine, from Mojang, from Frogmind, and they’re great games,” Vogel noted. Amazon Game Studios is organizing developments teams in smaller groups, they’re fifteen to thirty people. They might work for less than a year to up to eighteen months on a game. “We can do something really special at Amazon when you think about the cloud infrastructure and the devices,” Vogel said. Frazzini sees this as filling the big gap in the middle of the game market between simple mobile games and AAA console games, where “games are artistic, have a lot of soul and character, and that’s the type of game we’re working on.”
Who is the target audience Amazon is happy to get anyone on board, though anyone who already has a steaming device (which of course includes game consoles) is going to replace that device with a FireTV. What Amazon has done, though is provide a compelling device for anyone who’s interesting in streaming content (movies, music, TV shows) and/or playing games for a low cost with high quality.
Parents with kids are going to be an important market. The FireTV is likely the least expensive way to get a Minecraft experience for your kids, if you already have a TV. Kids will recognize and enjoy many of the games already on the FireTV, and the price of the games (averaging $1.85 for paid ones, and over a thousand free ones).
When parents go shopping this fall for that Christmas hardware purchase, the FireTV should be a strong consideration. The FireTV is a real threat to low-end consoles, and as time passes and the game library increases in size this will only be more true. Sure, an Xbox 360 or a PS3 or a Wii has plenty of great games, but they all cost at least $10 or $20 even when you buy them used, much less the new games for $60. High quality free games or games that only cost a few dollars will be tempting. Exclusive games of the quality that Sev Zero brings (an interesting cross between tower defense and third-person shooter) will be strong selling points.
Right now, the FireTV’s game offerings give it a clear advantage over the Roku’s mere handful of games and the AppleTV’s complete lack. The situation may change later this year, as Google is rumored to be releasing an Android TV device that will certainly have games, and Apple is supposedly prepping a new AppleTV that will include an App Store (and therefore games). So the FireTV may not be alone in having a strong game lineup for long.
However, Amazon is investing heavily in games, and any time Amazon gets before direct competition arrives will be well spent in improving the game library and additional services. Amazon’s got a big enough presence that it can attract major game developers, as has already been demonstrated. The $99 end of the console market is going to get far more interesting this year, and if Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo intend to compete there they will have to put in significant effort.
The FireTV is a competitive entry in the streaming device market as well as a solid low-end gaming console. As Amazon gets more exclusive games on the FireTV, and a broad array of games arrive from both major publishers and independents, the gaming value of the device will only improve. This fire is only beginning to burn, and we have yet to see how hot it can get.
