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Netflix Gets New Global Rival: Amazon Prime Video Now Available In Over 200 Countries (mashable.com)
Amazon announced Wednesday it is expanding its on-demand video streaming service Prime Video to nearly every country and territory except China. Prime Video, home to popular shows such as "The Grand Tour," "Transparent" and "The Man in the High Castle," will be bundled with Prime subscriptions in 19 countries including India, and Canada. In other new regions, Prime Video customers will have to pay $2.99 or 2.99 euros per month for the first six months, after which the price will be doubled to $5.99 or 5.99 euros. From a report: The global expansion of Prime Video comes nearly a year after Netflix announced it is making its streaming service available in 130 nations. Netflix is currently available in roughly 200 regions. Interestingly, Amazon is not only fighting back Netflix on content, but it is using its money power to gain instant foothold worldwide. In India, for instance, Amazon Prime Video costs less than a dollar per month for access.
Doesn't anti-trust forbid using excessive market power in one sector to obtain dominance in other?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Until Amazon can do something about the awful user interface for their video streaming service, they're not really going to challenge Netflix.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://play.google.com/store/...
Seems to be compatible with all my devices, including my old Galaxy 2+.
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On the contrary, I find Prime Video's selection better than Netflix in most cases, especially for movies. In addition, whereas Netflix' rotating catalog means I miss out completely if I don't watch a movie in time, with Amazon I can always pony up the $3 or so it costs to rent for the night to watch. Having the option, in addition to a better catalog selection (Amazon's partnership with HBO really helps here, plus their increasing library of originals), makes Prime Video an overall better choice.
Amazon Video is second tier to Netflix for sure but aren't bad and have a few good shows. But, as they also sell hardware, it's often difficult to get them to play on any given device. There are a few platforms they have elected not to be compatible with because they are direct competitors to Amazon HW. As long as this continues, I wouldn't pay money for the service except that there's Prime.
The OP's point about Amazon not allowing it on Android TV-devices stands, though. I have an NVIDIA Shield TV myself and Amazon won't allow their app on it, which makes the whole Amazon Video - thing entirely worthless for me; if I'm going to watch movies or TV-shows, it's going to be on the big screen, but I'm certainly not going to buy a whole separate device just for Amazon Video. They're only hurting themselves with their idiotic lock-in, if I can only use their services on their hardware, or everyone else's services on any hardware, then the choice is pretty damn obvious.
Aw come on. It's not really a competition when these services generally have different video offerings.
Sig for hire.
Amazon refuses to make Apple TV, Android TV, or Chromecast clients for Amazon Video so that locks out a huge number of people wanting to use the service. I already pay for Amazon Prime but I've never used their service because they simply don't allow me to. If they fix that then maybe it will be a competitor to Netflix.
Here's what HBO has to do with Amazon.
A good rule of thumb: if you have to use a video vendor's app to play the video (instead of the usual "use your favorite player"), then you're better off just pirating.
I just can't take Amazon video seriously yet (any more than Netflix). These companies need to use standards if they want my money. If you limit what it can be played on, then you're limiting who can be a paying customer.
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It was incredibly simple to run video on my roku and PC.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Amazon does allow their app on Android TV devices. But they don't port their app to every device, but they hit the most common ones (Samsung, Sony). If you really wanted to you could install the APK to your TV device and see if it worked.
Don't forget you can actually rent videos and stream them if they're not available on prime. Something Netflix completely neglects and why their selection is diminishing.
Amazon won't release an app for Apple TV (mumbling some crap about "stream from your phone with AirPlay!"), so it's a nonstarter. I don't want to tie up my phone while watching shows on a big screen. Oh, they'll go on about "we're protesting Apple's pricing!" or such, but the app is already on iPhones and iPads!
The real story is that they don't want to undercut their own TV hardware. They dropped Apple TV from sales, and searching for Apple TV on Amazon gives their own crap streamer as the top suggestion. No, Amazon, I don't want your hardware. I already have my own. If I have to buy into your ecosystem to watch Prime Video, I'll stick to Netflix.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There are people that don't use a phone for everything, and I have no complaints with picking up my roku remote, tapping a few buttons and settling back to watch the results of a nearly effortless set of motions.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
I have both, they are both limited, and there is quite a bit of overlap.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I agree with this guy and do the same. I find myself using Netflix more and watching the occasional something or another on Amazon.
The Netflix app on both the Wii and PS3 are far superior to the poorly written, text truncating, fixed resolution for 1080 only Amazon app for the PS3 and the similarly bad Wii app, though the Netflix app is functional on both.
Yes I'm poor and I still run a standard def CRT in the living room. I do have a 1080i CRT also, but it's not as big and doesn't get used in the living room.
I also only have one ISP in my area and the bandwidth is very unreliable at times. I find Netflix deals with my fluctuations in bandwidth a lot better than Amazon does.
Amazon for all of its flaws is still rather good and if it where the only movie streaming service you had - as long as you weren't an absolute junky - it would be fine. It's the only one I had had until I got married and my wife brought her Netflix account along, then again before I got married the only TV show I kept up with was South Park and that's before it got moved to Hulu only. Now I'm watching about a half dozen or so super hero shows.....
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now if only they would open up a bit and let the old XBMC/Kodi app work again. There was a relatively nice one that only worked if you actually logged in with an account meaning there wasn't anything shady going on, but compatibility got broke and I don't see it coming back.
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Heck, I subscribe to five streaming services, and at an average of $10 a month, it's still cheaper than cable. And I only subscribed to Prime because it came with some other Amazon-related goodies. If I didn't have an income, I could drop it down to one or two and still have a good selection of movies for a reasonable price + internet service, which is almost mandatory these days anyhow.
Even so, I'm considering dropping Hulu, since I almost never watch it, and those video bugs they paste in the corner irritate me.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I find that to Amazon's detriment at times.
Amazon has a better catalog, but trying to find free included videos amongst all the for-pay naff can be a challenge. It also makes the UI clunky.
I'd use Amazon more if they filtered out the "for-pay" stuff and had a UI similar to Netflix. I hate Amazon's UI. I think they probably have a larger library of free stuff (worth watching), but their UI is so bad I'd pick Netflix over Amazon if I could only have one.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Amazon will expand to 200 countries, but won't expand to the millions of customers in the US and elsewhere that use Android TV—even though their own video players are based on the platform. That is insanity. I will continue to boycott Amazon and steal its content until it corrects this absurd decision, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
Your old Galaxy 2+ is not an Android TV device. Do you have *any* Android TV devices? Can you read?
I'd like to see you try to install the Amazon Store on my Nexus Player. Or on a Mi Box. Go ahead, try. I'll wait...
Anyone else feel the paranoia and suspicion that it was just yesterday that Slashdot posted about the Grand Tour being the "most" pirated TV show in the world, which is available on Amazon Prime. Which seems to have prompted the expected response about "well Amazon Prime isn't available outside the US"! Then we get this followup story about Amazon Prime announcing they are suddenly releasing Amazon Prime in every country around the world...
Am I living in a meta commercial? Are we in Slashdot so influential? Is Amazon reacting to piracy numbers?
Only one thing to do, tighten the strap on my tinfoil hat, and hope the Faraday cage hasn't sprung a leak, because it is time to hunker down and softly rock back and forth...
...or will it be regional for some reason like Netflix?
Twinstiq, game news
I don't like Amazon and I have Netflix, but I am glad Amazon is there. Competition is always good for the consumer.
Did Amazon fix their player issue on Fire TV, Apple TV, XBox 1 and Tivo yet? Every single one of them stutters to death.
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