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Netflix Gets New Global Rival: Amazon Prime Video Now Available In Over 200 Countries (mashable.com)

Posted by msmash on from the aggressive-expansion dept.

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.

8 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. U.I. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    Until Amazon can do something about the awful user interface for their video streaming service, they're not really going to challenge Netflix.

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    1. Re:U.I. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Until Amazon can do something about the awful user interface for their video streaming service, they're not really going to challenge Netflix.

      Awful UI was necessary to reach feature parity. For example, they had to emulate the popular "scramble your queue for no reason" feature, and also the "drop whatever you watch most from recently watched to force you to go find it again" feature. Having successfully done these things, I guess they felt they were ready for prime time.

      Honestly, both Android clients are hot garbage.

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  2. Re:still forced to use amazon device or PC to view by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

    https://play.google.com/store/...

    Seems to be compatible with all my devices, including my old Galaxy 2+.

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  3. Re:still forced to use amazon device or PC to view by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:False competition by cdrudge · · Score: 2

    That's like saying GM and Toyota don't compete because they don't make the same cars. Or Google and Apple because they don't make the same phone OS.

    Both Netflix and Amazon offer movies, tv shows, and original content for streaming. Specific offerings differ, but they are all in the streaming entertainment category so they are in competition with each other, vying for the same potential subscribers.

  5. Re:Pay for Amazon Video? by pecosdave · · Score: 2

    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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  6. Re:Pay for Amazon Video? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

    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.

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  7. Re:Pay for Amazon Video? by boristdog · · Score: 2

    I don't like Amazon and I have Netflix, but I am glad Amazon is there. Competition is always good for the consumer.