Reports have surfaced that suggest, rather unsurprisingly, an Amazon game streaming service is in the works. The project, which hasn’t been officially named yet, was rumored to be in production since last year. And Amazon is reportedly already in talks with publishers about shipping titles through the service, despite the service being projected for a 2020 release.
The company hasn’t been shy about its intentions to move into the gaming scene, with its announced New World MMO still in the works after we got a handful of screenshots last year. Though the company hasn’t had an easy time in cementing its place in the industry, Amazon’s game studio has seemingly given up work on class-based battle royale title, Crucible, while its brawler title, Breakaway, was canceled back in 2018.
The reported move into streaming is yet one more addition to the Amazon portfolio. Amazon has Prime TV, which demonstrates that the company is rooted to streaming already, and a similar infrastructure in its AWS-cloud based storage service, is already used by some developers including Ubisoft and Sega.
It might be this pre-existing relationship with publishers and developers that’s fuelled reports that Amazon has already begun speaking with figures concerning shipping future titles through a streaming service. It makes sense for Amazon to try and nail down some concrete agreements ahead of time, with the reported service aiming for a 2020 release.
For those of you keeping score in this developing market of streaming, you might remember that Ubisoft CEO, Yes Guillemot, recently spoke about the future of consoles in an interview. He suggested that the likes of the PS5 and Xbox Scarlett will be the last cycle of conventional next-gen consoles before the industry embraces streaming as a replacement. And with the likes of both Amazon and Google already underway in that respect, while Microsoft, Nvidia, and Valve are experimenting with cross-technology software, it does seem that we could soon see some new players arriving on the scene to shake up the current powers that be.
