At the beginning of the month, Amazon announced they would stop selling the Chromecast, Apple TV, and Nexus Player through Amazon.com. Their official reasoning for banning these streaming media players was to “avoid customer confusion” since these devices did not “interact well with Prime Video.” In my opinion, it had more to do with Amazon using their retail leverage to sway Apple and Google into changing their in-app purchase policies. When announcing the new policy, Amazon said new listings for these products could no longer be created, which is why the new Apple TV and new Chromecast have never been available through Amazon. The largest online retailer also said existing listings for these devices would be removed on October 29th. That day is today and, as expected, the Amazon.com listings for the Chromecast, Apple TV, and Nexus Player have all been removed and replaced with 404 error pages. Searching for any of the removed devices on Amazon brings up search results devoid of the aforementioned products, but does produce a page with a banner at the top that takes customers to Amazon’s Streaming Media Player hub which features the Fire TV, Roku 4, Tivo Bolt, and other streaming boxes.
Notably, the Nvidia Shield and Razer Forge TV remain available for purchase through Amazon. Both of these devices run Android TV and provide the exact same user experience as the banned Nexus Player when it comes to viewing Amazon Video. The Nexus Player, while manufactured by ASUS, is as close to a Google product as you can get. The removal of only the Android TV device that was co-developed by Google is further evidence that Amazon is specifically targeting Apple and Google with this product ban.
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Do you not think maybe both Shield and Razor Forge have been left as they are sold primarily as gaming devices. It would be like them refusing to sell Other devices where the primary function isn’t streaming content but can do it just because it doesn’t have Amazon Prime Video support
Media player function is just a subset of Nvidia Shield capabilities.
One of my favorite feature is USB rechargeable remote control with headset jack ( thumps-up for no proprietary charger && thumps-up for a very good USB cable comes with fool proof green marker ).
I hope to see future Roku & AFTV remote control comes with headset jack and USB rechargeable function.
Also notable that they aren’t selling Chromecast Audio, which has nothing to do with Prime Video.
There is prime music though. Much like the issues with the play services that are issues for adding cast support to their prime video offerings those same issues exist on the music side too
Its dumb. i had to buy an AppleTv 4 through Apple so its not gonna stop sales. Amazon gonna lose customers like myself when needing appletv accessories. So it’s their lost.
Also, Apple has a dev kit for developer to build apps for AppleTV so there shouldn’t be a reason why Amazon can’t put Amazon Prime Video in the store and be ready this year.
It’s only for the new one though and while you are able to release a general app you need invited to have you app use the advanced features which is where I would guess is what Amazon are firing a warning shot over at Apple
Another interesting thing is that the Roku does not have the Amazon Video app in the UK , however they are still listed on amazon.co.uk.
And…?
Its not exactly like you can go to the Apple Store and buy a FireTV stick. Just like Apple, Amazon has a right to limit what it wants to sell and what it wants to not sell.
That is true but Apple is not a general retail store. They sell things which enhance their products. The Fire TV doesn’t quite do that. Amazon is free to carry what they want. Perhaps they were forced into doing this. Nevertheless, in the absence of some reasonable explanation it doesn’t enhance their reputation.
Well put. I’d hardly even call that explanation they gave there. The Apple Store is the Apple store (of course you’d have to be an idiot to go in there and ask where they keep the Fire Tvs). Amazon is an online marketplace and it’s the biggest in the world. To give you an idea of just how big–they can afford to piss of giants like Google and Apple. As good as they seem to be at handling competition, I can’t criticize what they’re doing from a business standpoint. But, companies have been known to make mistakes. If I had to guess I’d say amazon might look back on this with regret.
The new chromecast is garbage. It has very few dedicated apps, no remote is annoying and the wifi is still weak. I can mirror cast from fire tv and roku as well. I bought it at walmart and returned it the next day. Amazon did you a favor by removing chromecast. After using fire tv and roku 3, i could never downgrade to a chromecast. Apple tv? Apple eco system! No way. Nexus player 1st gen is a downgrade as well due to the very few apps. The nexus player 2nd gen being improved and increasing their future apps may be more tempting. Nvidia shield is just a hyped up nexus player more dedicated to gaming and i have no interest in gaming. It doesnt even come with a remote as that will cost extra on top of $200.
I have 3 Fire TV players and an Echo. The casting experience with a Chromecast or Nexus Player is way superior to anything you will get on Amazon’s players. Even from my HDX tablet the hoops you have to go through are too numerous and the results not great.
Amazon has not endeared itself to me with this unfortunate policy. I do hope it resolves itself.
With firetv, you really dont need to cast from apps on your tablet or phone because the firetv has dedicated apps and way more dedicated apps than chromecast. I was surprised to see so few dedicated chromecast apps. I really dont want to mirror cast and waste my tablet battery which i found myself doing because very few dedicated chromecast apps. That is the biggest problem with chromecast and nexus player. Wifi was much weaker compared to firetv and roku players. It is also much easier to use a roku or fire tv remote over phone or tablet. If nexus player 2nd gen fixes their small selection of dedicated apps, i may try that out.
If I want to show a photo on my Fire TV which originates from from HDX is there a simple way of doing that? What about a video?
AirPlay is very simple for either of those tasks to my Apple TV. When I had a Chromecast it also seemed simple though I agree that it doesn’t have all the apps. It has quite few though. How many do you need?
Some customers won’t return when they get an error page or can’t find what they are looking for.
They won’t return for that product but they’ll most likely be back. There’s a very simple reason for that…consumers have few choices. For all the talk of competition, these guys really despise it.