Amazon has decided to really step into the gaming market with a special edition of their new Fire TV product, based around a dedicated gaming controller, set to come out this October.
The ever-expanding online presence has long been marching towards becoming a multimedia empire. It has a suite of hardware products, led by a new version of their Fire TV streaming box. It has an exclusive deal with HBO for streaming, a multitude of original shows, and their own video game developer in Amazon Game Studios. That last one hasn’t really bared any fruit, until perhaps the recent announcement of the Fire TV Gaming Edition.
The Fire TV, for the uninitiated, is effectively a highly advanced streaming box dedicated to Amazon products. The current model comes with a 2 GHz processor, a dedicated GPU, and 2 GB of memory built into it – effectively, it is already a minor gaming machine. And the base Fire TV comes with the functionality to play the over 800 games that Amazon has access to. Which begs the question – what exactly justifies the jump in price from $99.99 for the Fire TV to $139.99 for the Gaming Edition?
The difference lies in the controller. Whereas on the base Fire TV model you must use the included TV remote, the Gaming Edition comes with a dedicated controller that appears heavily modeled after the current Xbox One controller. Its unique feature is that it includes Amazon‘s voice search technology Alexa, doubling as a remote for the rest of Fire TV’s entertainment functions. The controller also includes support for Dolby sound systems through its on board headphone jack.
Fire TV Gaming Edition will also come with two games included: the indie smash hit Shovel Knight and the classic platformer re-imagining, DuckTales Remastered.
The Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition will release on October 5, 2015.
