Amazon is banning the sale of streaming media players from Apple and Google

[Shawn Knight]

Amazon’s logo is a clever play on lettering, suggesting it carries everything from A to Z. While the e-commerce giant does peddle millions of products, a handful of media streamers that compete directly with its Fire TV set-top box won’t be among them for much longer.

Bloomberg was first to report on the matter after learning about it on Reddit. Amazon has since confirmed the matter with Variety.

In a statement to the publication, an Amazon spokesperson said that over the past three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime and that it’s important that the streaming media players they sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.

In other words, if a streaming media player – in this case, Apple TV, Chromecast and the Nexus Player – don’t support Amazon Prime Video, they’re getting the boot.

An e-mail sent to some sellers said that effective immediately, they’d no longer be able to create listings for the aforementioned products. Furthermore, any existing listings for these products would be removed come October 29.

It’s a curious move on Amazon’s part, especially considering that it was Amazon – not Apple or Google – that made the decision not to build apps for those platforms.

It’s worth noting that Roku, Xbox and PlayStation aren’t affected by the decision since they all allow playback of Amazon’s video service.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/62300-amazon-banning-sale-streaming-media-players-apple-google.html

 

[gibbstar]

Nice. Love my Roku.

 

[bexwhitt]

My samsung TV used to have a Amazon App but Amazon have decided to remove it, admittedly it was pretty awful and if you played more than one episode of a series it played the second on at the wrong aspect ratio.

I keep hoping Amazon Prime Video would get onto my Virgin Tivo box but nothing so far.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

Which one can beat a Fire TV with Kodi......................................crickets

 

[Burty117]

With the New AppleTV coming out it'll be easy to get an App on there so I don't think this'll pose much of an issue. I doubt Amazon will stop selling them.

 

[FakeAccount]

With the New AppleTV coming out it'll be easy to get an App on there so I don't think this'll pose much of an issue. I doubt Amazon will stop selling them.

Google's solution is open source, if they wanted an app they would have made one already. Seems to me they are afraid of competition, would be interested to see the sales figures of all of these devices.

 

[SirDigby]

This is literally Amazon pulling a dirty trick to gain some market share - which wont work because you can buy a Chromecast in most supermarkets nowadays, and even just on Play.com or Ebay...

Good luck Amazon, for throwing your toys out of the pram.

 

[NightAngel79]

With the New AppleTV coming out it'll be easy to get an App on there so I don't think this'll pose much of an issue. I doubt Amazon will stop selling them.

They literally ARE stopping selling them. That's what the article is about??

It is Amazon who has thus far, refused to make an app for that platform. All they needed to do is release an app for those respective platforms to keep selling them. They chose not to, therefore they will not be selling AppleTV, chromecast, etc...

Unless they back pedal because of consumers lashing out at this asinine move that is

 

[Badvok]

Not so strange decision by Amazon, I.e. We're not going to support Chromecast so we'll stop selling it.

No big problem, we can buy it from plenty of other places, and those of us who want to watch Amazon Prime Video on our Chromecasts will just have to continue screen-casting it. Only downside to screen-casting is that it sucks lots of power, so you need your smartphone on external power.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Meh.

 

[Squid Surprise]

You can't buy a Chromecast or Fire in the Apple Store... Why should Amazon open their store for Apple and Google? They are their chief rivals - makes sense for them to say "buy it somewhere else".

If you really want one, they're easy to find elsewhere.... not sure why anyone is complaining, let alone surprised by this move... the only surprise is that it took this long.

 

[captaincranky]

Well, this is just the latest manifestation of the Amazon CEO's paranoid delusions of world domination kicking in.

First it was drones to deliver your packages.

Recently for me, it was Amazon's hijacking the TV series, "Marvel's Agents of Shield", as exclusive distributor for season 2. And yeah, the prices were outrageous. It got very little other than one star reviews because of the price.

I buy as little as possible directly from Amazon. I buy CDs from their marketplace vendors, and that's about it..

And this latest stunt, at least for me, gives me another reason to not patronize Amazon.. I don't want prime, and pretty much anything I want, I can get someplace else, with a better price, and quite often with a better shipping option.

 

[Emexrulsier]

Pretty sure this wont happen within the eu without massive fines.

 

[captaincranky]

Pretty sure this wont happen within the eu without massive fines.

It only stands to reason, as the EU Court judges are probably about due for summer homes and speedboats.

 

[Badvok]

Pretty sure this wont happen within the eu without massive fines.

Yeah, just like the EU forces Lidl to sell Tesco's own brand products :O

 

[Camikazi]

Pretty sure this wont happen within the eu without massive fines.

Yeah, just like the EU forces Lidl to sell Tesco's own brand products :O

There is a difference between Lidl, Tesco and Amazon take a guess at what it could be. Here is a hint: it is the same difference that Google and Microsoft also have