There are three big names in gaming: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. All of these gaming powerhouses have products that can be bought and sold through Amazon and an assortment of other retailers like Best Buy, Target and GameStop.
In the past, there have been other gaming consoles that have tried to keep up with these big three. Take for instance the Ouya Box released in July 2013 at an extremely competitive $99 price point, which fell devastatingly short of its over-hyped performance abilities and features and failed to take off. So when rumors about Amazon creating its own gaming console emerged, it left many people in the gaming community to wonder if it would be another Ouya flop.
According to an interview with CNN and Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Research, Amazon’s purchase of gaming studio Double Helix shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“That’s to be expected when large successful players need to find “blue oceans”: new areas where they can pioneer and dominate over time,” Valdes said to CNN.
Amazon’s investment with Double Helix, who created the Killer Instinct game for Xbox One and is described on Xbox’s website as a “legendary fighting game franchise,” is viewed as a “moonshot,” a funding of a far-reaching idea. However, if Amazon is intending on creating a gaming console, they do have one thing that the other big names don’t have: their own selling platform.
Quantcast.com estimates that Amazon had around 88 million people visit its site in the U.S. alone during the month of January. Amazon would not only be selling its competitors consoles, but its own as well. What Amazon could offer above the others in regards to features is nothing to sniff at though.
Amazon can offer to rent games (like GameFly), movies (like Netflix), stream TV (like Hulu) and both sell and create games for its own console and others with its acquisition of Double Helix. Plus, Amazon could even integrate features similar to the Wii U controller, which utilizes a screen in the hands along with the TV but through its Amazon Kindle devices. The opportunities seem to be endless and certainly cause for the big names to feel nervous, especially if the console is released at its rumored price of $300, as CNN reported. That’s currently $15 more than the Wii U, $100 less than the PS4 and $200 less than the Xbox One.
UT video game enthusiast, junior environmental science major Jason Gomez, is excited at the prospect of an Amazon game console.
“Amazon has worked to solidify itself as more than just a shopping website through the development of their Kindle tablet, and moving outward into the gaming world seems like a logical step to take,” Gomez said.
However, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter thinks that the Amazon console hype isn’t going to cause the heads of Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo to lose any sleep.
“It will most likely function like a Roku on the movie side,” Pachter said. “But will also work like an Ouya Box on the game side.”
For right now it’s all just speculation, though the prospect of Amazon edging its way into the gaming big leagues seems to have created quite the buzz. In the past, Amazon has come up with some pretty amazing and often crazy ideas, including its delivery drones project. In comparison, a gaming console seems pretty tame.
Kaela Bernardino can be reached at kaela.bernardino@spartans.ut.edu