Earlier today, Re/Code’s Adam Kafka reported that his sources are telling him that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will be rolling out its TV set-top box this March. The box was, by some, expected prior to last year’s Christmas shopping season but that plan was scrapped.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in recent months has ramped up its production of original digital content and already has a large catalog of existing content available to Amazon Prime customers. Consequently, Amazon’s work on a set-top box that will compete with Roku and Apple TV makes a tremendous amount of sense and cents. It’s a safe bet that Amazon’s box will also accommodate its large catalog of music.
Android makes sense
Re/Code is also calling on whatever this set-top box ends up being to run Android. This has been the understanding for some time in many reports and rumors, not to mention the fact that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s line of Kindle Fire products already run a forked version of Android.
While in the past, rumors have swirled around the fact that this box could also be a platform for gaming, there was no mention of this in the report by Re/Code and Mr. Kafka. Numerous reports before Christmas suggested that the reason for the delayed release was that Amazon did want to integrate gaming but was unable to do so in time for the holiday shopping season.
How much will it cost?
If this report is to be believed what is missing is pricing. Mr. Kafka gave no indication of what Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was thinking in this respect. With rumors of an increase in Amazon Prime subscriptions, is it possible that it will be bundled together with new subscriptions? Or offered at a discount to existing subscribers? Well, it sounds as if we will have to wait until March to have an answer to that question.
Either way, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is in a unique position to potentially leap-frog competitors and gain a large potential sales base given the visitors it has to its site each day to buy other products.
