Amazon has acquired a video gaming studio called Double Helix, fueling speculation that it’s developing a gaming console. Amazon.com has been leveraging its strength in media (books, DVDs, CDs) in the digital space, and just as it producing ebooks, streaming video and original “TV series,” and mobile games and apps, it’s now working on console games as well.
The Washington Post wonders if it really is a gaming console that’s in the works, or perhaps something different, writing, “Rumors that Amazon’s been planning a set-top box stretch back years. If those rumors are true, then it’s not crazy to think that such a device would also include access to high-quality, downloadable or streaming games.”
Whatever it is, Amazon apparently plans on disrupting the current marketplace, according to one report.
Gamers meanwhile were disturbed about the acquisition and asked why Microsoft didn’t acquire Double Helix since it develops its popular Killer Instinct title for Microsoft. Gamers expressed concern about the fate of Killer Instinct 2. Gaming news site Polygon reports Microsoft will indeed be using a new development partner on the sequel.
Amazon doesn’t break out its digital goods from total worldwide unit sales in earnings report, making it difficult to know exactly how well all those Kindle books and Amazon Prime Instant Video movies are doing. But with consumers increasingly going digital, one wonders where Amazon would be if it hadn’t set out on its digital journey and had instead stuck solely with paper books and plastic DVDs.
