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Amazon snaps up video-gaming streaming site Twitch

by Mark Tyson on 26 August 2014, 10:00

Tags: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)

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Twitch has made an official announcement stating that it has been acquired by Amazon. This came as a surprise to many, following revelations that Google was in talks to acquire the company back in May, thinking that Mountain View would surely follow though.

The original report from a few months ago stated that Google's YouTube was looking to acquire Twitch for more than $1 billion, but it appears the deal never came to a close. According to Forbes' sources this was due to concerns about potential antitrust issues that may follow such an acquisition. It is also worth noting that neither Google nor Twitch ever publicly confirmed those acquisition talks.

Amazon confirmed a final sale price of $970 (£585) million in cash in a follow-up press release. It intends to add Twitch's service to its growing media content including its Fire TV set-top box launched back in April. Many are seeing the acquisition as Amazon's effort in its quest to top other streaming video sites such as YouTube and Netflix with its Prime subscription as Twitch adds committed gamers to Amazon's potential audience.

"Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. "Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community."

Twitch first started back in 2011, and was formerly known as Twitch.tv. The service allows users to watch other people play video games online, and is now built into games consoles such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As of July this year, it reported over 55 million unique monthly users.

If you are a concerned Twitch fan the newly acquired firm tries to sooth by reassuring that there won't be any big shakeups: "We're keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon's support we'll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch."



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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Cash!!! I wonder how many briefcases full of $100 dollar bills they needed to do that?
KeyboardDemon
Cash!!! I wonder how many briefcases full of $100 dollar bills they needed to do that?
Nah, they got 585,000 £1,000 Amazon gift cards emailed to them. LOL

However I'm still trying to see the big deal with this service. Sure, it's great for “bragging rights” or maybe tip sharing - but apart from that I can't see the appeal. In which case £585M is a heck of a lot of “loose change”. Then again, I can't see any appeal - at all - in these “unboxing videos” that a lot of people seem to post. So maybe I'm just completely out of touch with the way things are done these days.
crossy
I'm still trying to see the big deal with this service. Sure, it's great for “bragging rights” or maybe tip sharing - but apart from that I can't see the appeal. In which case £585M is a heck of a lot of “loose change”. Then again, I can't see any appeal - at all - in these “unboxing videos” that a lot of people seem to post. So maybe I'm just completely out of touch with the way things are done these days.

If I were to use it, that'd be it. The platform for the pro-gamers and those who want to watch them (either as e-sports fans or to just to improve their own play)is where the interest lies - primarily I guess it is the advertising that you can sell around all those viewers, but they must see more mileage than just that (in the platform itself) if they're willing to shell out that much for it.
e-Sports. Lots of people speculating on it at the moment. Still a lot of muller.
Tpyo
If I were to use it, that'd be it. The platform for the pro-gamers and those who want to watch them (either as e-sports fans or to just to improve their own play)is where the interest lies - primarily I guess it is the advertising that you can sell around all those viewers, but they must see more mileage than just that (in the platform itself) if they're willing to shell out that much for it.
Fair enough - then again the whole “esports” malarky just leaves me cold - I prefer to actually game myself rather than watch someone else do it, even if I'm doing it really, really, really badly. Seen one or two of those tourney's on Ginx and it just looked like a lot of testosterone fuelled adolescents. I know … I just don't “get” it.