Slashdot Mirror
Amazon's Fire TV: Is It Worth Game Developers' Time?
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "Amazon is serious about conquering the living room: the online retailer has launched Fire TV, a set-top box that not only allows viewers to stream content, but also play games. That streaming-and-gaming capability makes Amazon a threat to Apple, which rumors suggest is hard at work on an Apple TV capable of doing the same things. In addition, Fire TV puts the screws to other streaming hardware, including Roku and Google's Chromecast, as well as smaller game consoles such as Ouya (a $99, Android-based device). Much of Amazon's competitive muscle comes from its willingness to sell hardware for cheap (the Fire TV retails for $99) on the expectation that owners will use it to stream and download digital content from Amazon, including television shows and apps. Those developers who've developed Android games have an advantage when it comes to migrating software to Amazon's new platform. "Porting You Don't Know Jack was really like developing for Android, with the exception of the store and the new controller library," Jackbox Games Designer/Director Steve Heinrich told Gamasutra after the Fire TV announcement. "The store itself is the same as the Kindle version, which we've used many times now, and the way the controller works is very close to what we did for Ouya." While Fire TV could represent yet another opportunity for game developers looking to make a buck, it also raises a pressing question: with so many platforms out there (iOS, PC, etc.), how's an indie developer or smaller firm supposed to allocate time and resources to best advantage?"
...so the trick becomes -- do you want to write an app where the primary input isn't touch.
If it's ad based, then getting in front of more eyeballs via Android and derivatives is the way to go.
If it's depending upon purchases or in-app purchases then iOS is the platform to concentrate on first.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Why would someone buy a FireTV in other countries? Even in Canada, we don't get things like Hulu, Amazon Streaming, etc. All we have is the Canadian version of Netflix which has, at best, 20% of the library available to the USA.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If it shipped with their game controller, it might be worth considering. But the controller is an optional extra...
Short answer: no.
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooo.
Honestly, if they are not writing for Ouya, they will not write for this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So I guess the question is why are you even bothering to ask us? You'd going to have to spend a whole extra day programming. Big whoop. Just do it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Amazon's primary interest in this device *seems* to be to drive sales on Amazon Instant, not to serve as a general purpose streamer like Roku (though it does that too). There's some confusion in the business press about what Amazon is up to, but this is a likely guess. It doesn't want to be reliant on Roku, ChromeCast, Sony, etc., and would like to have a sticky ecosystem like Apple.
The other theory is that Amazon believes users will prefer it as a premium branded product, again like Apple. The product does not need to compete with Roku on price, in that case, but does need to compete on features.
yes, you are the only one.
Not a threat to Apple(tm). Apple fans are the least likely to leave their chosen brand. We android users are a fickle lot though, and I'll jump ship in a millisecond to Ubuntu if Shuttleworth can get his shit together on the mobile platform. Until the next thing comes along that tweaks my interest.
Salut,
Jacques
INB4 someone posts something about Betteridge's Law of Headlines, along with a link to the Wikipedia article informing all of us for the very, very, very first time that such a thing exists.
Nobody wants this device to begin with, and nobody makes any money developing for Android, so this is a complete dead-in-the-water device that will only be adopted by the same boneheads who adopted the Ouya. So SquareEnix's Final Fantasy division and nobody else. (SquareEnix is the only company to put their games on pretty much every new platform, and is also the same company who has no commitment to any platform. See how FF7 and FF8, but no later games came to the PC except for the MMORPG's. One of the few companies that made anything for dead-from-the-beginning devices like the Wonderswan color, and the Ouya.)
We never saw Japanese games on American phones until the iPhone because all phones that came before it were worthless pieces of crap that were not compatible with each other beyond half assed JavaME.
Nobody wants to play that game again of building software for worthless pieces of crap that nobody actually plays games on. Nobody makes money from games on Android, and nobody plays games on SmartTV's, this is just the logical end of it.
They develop their game to the platform that already has the most users, thus maximizing their potential profit.
This is the kind of stupid question that's asked by geeks who diss MBAs.
Given that amazon cheaped out on the hardware, I would say 'No'.
Why in the world they chose the S4 Pro over the Snapdragon 800 (with Adreno 330) boggles the mind.
It's like when nVidia released the tegra 3 and the darn thing was outdated before it even hit the shelves.
Can we hack the bootloader?
There's the trick!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The Amazon Fire TV requires a Prime membership to get the maximum value from the device. Without the Prime membership (and extra $100 a year), the device is drastically hamstrung compared to an Apple TV or a Roku.
If you have an Amazon Prime membership already, this device is fantastic.
If you don't have an Amazon Prime membership, this device will add a notable expense to your yearly entertainment budget.
If you live in pretty much any country other than the US, you're buying a device that is severely hamstrung due to the lack of Amazon Prime benefits such as streaming video. You know, the point of this device.
Until Amazon overcomes that final scenario - the lack of value/availability of Amazon Prime outside the US, this device will have a very small and focused target market. If you already pay for an Amazon Prime membership then this device is awesome. For everyone else, the choice is heavily skewed towards an Apple TV or a Roku and away from a Fire TV.
Seriously, how much value does this device have without access to video streaming via Amazon Prime? Somebody within Amazon should have ensured that they had an acceptable answer to that question before launching this device. DOA outside the US.
A Steam Box is more a set of specs than a single physical device. I would compare it more with a Roku or AppleTV (those can play games too), only with a Ouya controller offered as an optional purchase.
And, personally, I like my Roku 3 a lot better (very easy to side-load apps on a Roku). The games on a Fire Box look better than most Ouya fare, but the best of them still looked like PS2 games. My PS4 does a much better job in that department.
It also doesn't help that the remote is blutooth only, meaning (like my PS4, but unlike my Roku), I can't use my Harmony remote with it.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
That last link points to news.dice.com. Am I the only one who dislikes such a link (without a disclaimer)?
Nope. Nerval's Lobster is the pen name of they guy who wrote a ton of articles on (the now apparently defunct) SlashBI. He gets a ton of stories posted (several of which link back to news.dice.com) but doesn't actually participate in the community.
Additional related link
If this supported DLNA as a client (since I have a media server), I'd be all over this. If I owned one, I'd develop for it. Kindle owners BUY APPS. They are about on par with iOS users.
Who do I trust to stuff like this right? In order ...
1. Steam
2. Apple
*distant dip in confidence from here on *
3. Microsoft (oddly)
4. Google (doesn't have user's interests in mind)
*And now it gets real shaky*
5. Amazon (doesn't seem to get things "right", hard to explain)
6. Sony (trust is major factor)
7. Nintendo (doesn't seem to understand market at all)
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Unless you subscribe to unblock-us or unotelly or one of the other DNS VPN providers, then you can watch all of that in Canada as well.
Is it or me does it seem more and more like SunOS, IRIX, HP-UX, VMS, Digital UNIX, and so on all over again? I sometimes wonder if this is the precursor to the second coming of windows. Microsoft is the only company that seems to be trying to unify all their "stuff" across various devices/platforms.
I knew the Fire TV name sounded familiar, and now I remember why. FyreTV is a set-top box for streaming pr0n delivery that advertised years ago in the back of Maxim magazine. I'd forgotten about them until Amazon reminded me, and am actually surprised to see they are still around. I wonder if Amazon will be forced to change the name of their box due to trademark concerns?
It only comes with 8 gigs of storage and no expansion slot. Considering that a lot of games weigh in at more than a gigabyte nowadays it's pretty obvious that no "hardcore" gamer would buy this instead of a console even if the other hardware specs were reasonably good.
I know for certain that Amazon is building up some GPU in their compute data clusters. I wonder if they're going to start to offer a game streaming service like OnLive. That would actually be pretty cool if they did it, not only video streaming, but game streaming also.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
You Don't Know Jack still exists? Huh.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The problem here is that the product has no specific point to it - it exists *solely to produce vendor lock in*. Since it's little more than a re-badged Android TV stick there's really nothing special at all about it. This, in a market space that's saturated with me-too also-rans.
It's not that Amazon's offering is horrible, it's that it's not notable in a field littered with the corpses of other not-notable failed products.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Riiight, because Steam isn't a closed garden (???).
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Steam, the distribution platform, is a closed garden. SteamOS, and the Steam Machines, are not. See http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/.
Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Riiight, because Steam isn't a closed garden (???).
123AHSD712UQWJASDJQWU1238129000XZC0ZX0CZX0C0ZXC0AD0ASDASD
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Does anyone know if its planned? The kindle fire has it, so I am confused why their desktop fire would not have it. Xbox wants 60 bucks for another year of Gold and the only reason I still use it is the xbox xfinity app.