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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

In recent times Amazon has started making content exclusive to their own hardware (Amazon TV, Fire tablets/phones). Go check out the comparison chart here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fire-TV-streaming-media-player/dp/B00C...

Note what Amazon Prime Streaming works on. Then go here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/devices

Note that aside from Apple's devices, Amazon Prime video works only on Amazon's own mobile hardware.

Is this why they're buying Twitch? To make it another "Amazon Exclusive" for Fire devices? Frankly that would explain a lot. If they can lock the content down it will force people into their ecosystem if they want mobile access.

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Buying a service primarily used by gamers streaming in game footage and locking it down to non-gaming hardware would be beyond idiotic.

Yeah but drones, though.

I agree. It would instantly block out the majority of the userbase.

Yes I think this is critical. You just don't buy Kindle stuff for games or you're going to be not only disappointed but at a terrible disadvantage because of the artificial lock-in. The Amazon App Store is much smaller than Play and iTunes (though improving), and the Fire TV has a very small and stagnant selection of games (and not really improving).

I agree. A big part of the valuation of twitch.tv is it's positioning in the market. It doesn't make sense to drastically shock that positioning while locking out a large contingent of users in the process.

If Amazon wanted a similar service to make exclusive to the Kindle ecosystem, it would make much more sense to grow one themselves with deep integration into the kindle line of products. They've done this with a lot of other products and services, and certainly have the capability.

With Twitch, it would seem to make more sense for them to continue to seek partnerships with gaming platforms so that the Twitch.tv brand is increasingly ubiquitous in gaming, and then use that as a relatively extrinsic source of growth.

I could see them locking out strategic players (hint: Google), and making certain events or content exclusive to the Kindle ecosystem, but locking everything down to Kindle doesn't strike me as a viable move.

If by exclusive you mean a lot of devices except Android.

Desktops, laptops, iPhone, iPad, iPod, TVs, Roku, PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XBox One, Wii, Wii U, Blu-ray players

"Aside from Apple devices" is a large exception. It's larger than the rule in fact.

Might be better to say that they have locked in their streaming content to Mac, Windows, Fire OS, iOS, all game consoles of the last two generations, 541 smart TVs, Google TV, a limited selection of DVRs, receivers and Home Theatre systems, most popular Blu-Ray players, Tivo, FireTV, Roku and several other streaming media players, and they have released music but not video for Android.

Really the only thing that Amazon Video doesn't seem to support is non-Amazon builds of Android....

It seems like if Amazon killed most of their audience, the people streaming the video games would no longer use Twitch.

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