Amazon Kindle Fire TV announced & released

[A Black Falcon]

So, this is Amazon's new streaming box / low-end console, much like the Ouya but from a much bigger company, and more powerful. I doubt that I'm interested, but Amazon has done something different from the rest of the things in this category, like the Apple TV or Roku (two devices I know little about): they're putting focus into games. Amazon has actually bought up some developers, including the studio that made Killer Instinct (2013) and Strider (2014) and some other potentially good people, and will have first-party titles on the system, so this is a bit more serious effort than the other streaming boxes. It isn't a full current-gen console, but it's not just a streaming box either. Interesting; we'll see if it takes off. Amazon's size and marketing power should get this thing a lot more sales than the Ouya's getting, at least, for sure!

As for the controller, it's sold separately, which is kind of annoying for buyers -- the box is only $100, but then add $40 for each controller and $100/year for Amazon Prime, which they'll certainly try to push on you if you have one of these, and it gets pricier. The remote that comes with the box has a microphone built in, for instance, but not all third-party apps support voice search... if any do. Still though, voice search definitely could be handy, for a system without a keyboard, so that is a nice feature to have. As for the controller, it's basically another X306 knockoff design.

First-party game "sizzle reel" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_s3MI4onM The graphics aren't nearly as good as full consoles, but it does look better than Ouya graphics.

On the note of the Ouya, Game Informer's April issue's April Fools section had some funny stuff in it... including one kind of cruel article "by Ouya's CEO" trying to convince people to buy Ouyas, because no one wants one. Ouch... but kind of true, I think. But this should do better. How much better? We'll see. But it's Amazon, so it could do alright.

The big downside, of course, is that these streaming boxes are entirely designed for the Internet-based, "you don't really own anything anymore" future. That future may be coming, but it has so many huge downsides that there are at more bad things about that than good, I think!

[Dark Jaguar]

I've said it before ABF, the digital future CAN work if we all take the time to FIX those downsides. We need digital rights, not just "digital rights management".

I've got no particular reason to want this new console. It seems we've entered an era much like the early 90's, when every single company HAD to have their own game console. The Ouya, this, they all seem to be of the same caliber as the Philips CD-i and its ilk.

[A Black Falcon]

We do need digital rights, but how do we get them? And I like physical things... digital isn't quite the same, though I have plenty of digital games too.

Also, I agree on your second point; it does seem like everyone's making some kind of consoley thing now. Most of the things are Android-powered, so they're not all totally separate, but each has different hardware, some different games, etc... confusing stuff, for people following all of them, I imagine. I don't know if they're quite the CD-i, though. The CDi wasn't a great games machine, but it WAS pretty good at outputting video. CD-i video quality is apparently generally better than that on other systems of the early '90s, particularly with its Digital Video addon. Does this system or the Ouya have some thing it's clearly good at?

[Dark Jaguar]

You can say what you will of the CD-i, but it doesn't matter unless you can name ONE game worth playing on the console.

The Ouya has nothing at all going for it except for it's open platform nature.

[A Black Falcon]

https://www.youtube.com/user/HalfBlindGamer/videos A couple of games look kind of decent.