Amazon Fire TV and Fire Game Controller announced

[MechDeus]

Who are Amazon's first party developers or are we discussing unknown future acquisitions? The first thought in my head of Amazon making games for an Android system is something like a Candy Crush Saga clone, though I'd like to be way off.

[EvilMog]

Yup. Who gives a shit.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I read this on Eurogamer... Amazon's take specifically is interesting, because they're actually hiring developers to make Android exclusive games, which is what the platform badly needs.

[MechDeus]

So we have no idea. Okay.

[Frogacuda]

Why do Android fanboys think playing those garbage phone games on my TV is some sort of draw?

That's what this is. It's an Android console. So if I'm going to play my phone games on my TV, at least I can download the ones I ALREADY PAID FOR instead of buying them again.

[Yoshi]

Who are Amazon's first party developers or are we discussing unknown future acquisitions? The first thought in my head of Amazon making games for an Android system is something like a Candy Crush Saga clone, though I'd like to be way off.

According to internet sleuth Superannuation, Amazon's console is core focused, and the gargantuan company has embarked on a game developer hiring spree, snapping up staff from the likes of Microsoft Studios.

Amazon set up Amazon Game Studios, which, according to its website, is "focused on creating innovative, fun and well-crafted games".

"We know that many Amazon customers enjoy playing games, and we believe we can deliver great, accessible gaming experiences that gamers can play any time," Amazon said.

In July Amazon Game Studios published Air Patriots, a tower defense game made by Lemon Team. Right now there are plenty of jobs going at AGS in offices in Seattle, San Francisco and Irvine.

The director of AGS is David Luehmann, who used to work at Defiance developer Trion Worlds and, before that, was general manager at Microsoft Studios, working with Ensemble, Aces and Turn 10. David Holmes, who worked on Epic's Gears of War 3 and Remedy's Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break while at Microsoft Studios, is an executive producer at Amazon Game Studios.

Link

[Frogacuda]

Air Patriots is out on the regular Android market though. It doesn't necessarily seem like their priority is exclusivity or pushing proprietary hardware.

[MechDeus]

That Air Patriots game looks about in line with what I was thinking. I'll continue to expect more nothing from them, but hopefully they'll surprise me.

[No One]

Yeah, I'm not really understanding the appeal of playing games designed to while away a few minutes at a time on my television. I am admittedly biased though, since I think iOS/Android games are mostly (with the occasional exception) garbage. Ports of existing games with shitty touch screen controls don't interest me, and I have plenty of machines capable of emulation already.

[Frogacuda]

I think there's more and more stuff out there that actually is worth playing on its own, though. Some of the Square games like Drakerider, or Vector Unit's games. Gene Effect is pretty good. EA's games are very good. Ports of stuff like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio that are just as good as on any other platform...

I mean I definitely wouldn't put that up against a real console, but if I had one of these things as a media box and it had access to the Play Store, I'd probably like playing some games on it here and there.