Amazon is reportedly working on a video streaming top-box, which will allow people to stream videos straight from the Internet. This comes from Bloomberg Businessweek sources, who detail it will land this fall.
Currently Amazon Prime has a video streaming service, allowing users to view different movies and TV programs for a monthly fee. The retail giant may see this as the next step in video streaming and will allow them to compete in another market.
The Competition
Right now, Apple TV, Roku and Xbox compete in this area alongside a few other competitors. Apple TV has done quite well, but with Xbox’s other features, it has a lot more users.
Amazon works more on media than hardware and software, unlike Google, it does not work on a different services and employs different companies to work on Maps and Search.
As a video streaming top-box would be all about media, Amazon can use its grasp to pull in some great content providers, including their own.
This move may allow content to be pushed to Amazon’s services, against its biggest competitor Netflix. The company has not gained a huge amount of traction or original content in the US, as Netflix has.
Big Investments In Media
Amazon does have an excellent channel to get buyers though, with the e-commerce site still being one of the most viewed websites in the world.
The company is committed to entertainment and media as well, splashing out millions on licensing and they are currently working on their own content.
In the next few years we will see Amazon and Netflix go head to head for subscribers and content.
Netflix is slowly pulling away from this model though, with the quarterly report showing how well House of Cards, a Netflix exclusive, did on the service.
Amazon has had good hardware development too, we just hope they have a nice user interface and try to market it like they did the Kindle Fire.
Source: The Next Web
