Amazon has launched Prime service in India today, with Prime Video coming soon to the country. If you frequent this site, you may have noticed that I like to look at Amazon’s past actions to try and predict what they’ll do in the future. Last August, Amazon announced that Prime Video would soon be coming to Japan. A few weeks later, Amazon revealed the Fire TV 2, just in time for it to be made available in Japan for the first time, which nicely coincided with the launch of Prime Video in Japan. Now that it’s been revealed that Prime Video is coming soon to India, I expect we’ll see new Fire TV hardware revealed before then, so that the new device(s) can be launched in India as well, in conjunction with Prime Video.
Since Amazon pre-announced Prime Video in Japan, then revealed a new Fire TV, and then made Fire TV devices available in Japan for the first time, it’s reasonable that Amazon will repeat the same chain of events in India, especially since the pre-announcement of Prime Video in India is happening around the same time of year as the pre-announcement of Prime Video in Japan. If that isn’t enough to support my theory, I’ve got one more piece of evidence for you.
A new geographically restricted Fire TV app called [IN_Launch] Banjo APP#1 was just added to the Amazon appstore last week. My app tracking scripts occasionally pick up strange apps like this which usually get removed from the appstore within a week. My guess is they’re apps added by Amazon staff to test Amazon devices. The app’s name seems to imply it’s for testing something related to an India launch, and the fact that Amazon’s API has it flagged as a Fire TV app is pretty solid evidence that the Fire TV will be available in India soon. Since it makes the most sense to launch a device in a new country at the start of a hardware refresh, we’ll likely see a new generation of Fire TV devices revealed soon.
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I’m ready for a new stick, that can handle 10bit x265, though I don’t care much about 4k. As far as I’m concerned, they can leave the box as is for a while longer.
802.11ac is a no brainier in a refresh. I doubt we see 4k in the stick at this point but might be possible. HDMI CEC and remote which has IR learning would be huge. Personal listening remote might be a nice feature too.
Wow…great theory. Hopefully it is the stick after all. Not sure what they could add to the AFTV2 to get me to switch. Currently have 7 boxes all rooted with updates blocked and running KODI (and other streaming apps) beautifully.
Maybe AFTV Television? Like the Roku TV?
So how could a new set top Fire TV be improved? It already has 4k and cutting edge specs. It runs circles around the Apple TV and is comparable to the Roku 4 with the difference being the Fire TV doesn’t have a fan or the awful form factor the Roku 4 has. Instead of focusing on hardware, I think Amazon needs to focus on the Fire TV interface which is awful (they really need to get rid of all of the advertisements, promos, and offers for services that litter the interface).
or focus on improving the stick, which is getting a bit dated, and can’t play newer formats like x265.
True, the stick needs to be updated with better specs. The Playstation Vue app is almost unwatchable on the stick.
+1 on the horrible interface. Needs a complete overhall.
Amazon Video is one of the few sources of 4k programming in HDR, yet the current Fire TV can not display HDR. I have to believe that the next FTV box will include HDR capabilities.
Yep, HDR and 4K@60 would be nice, to compete vs. Shield and upcoming Mi Box. Wish Amazon would finally embrace at least 16GB for internal storage as well.
Very interesting. Fire TV (non-gaming edition) OOS on Staples and Amazon website. Went in to local Staples store today and none available near me, despite me buying one less than a week ago. Gaming edition still available though. Hmm….
Interesting! Still, I’d expect a new stick prior to a new box, but maybe they will release updates to both at the same time.
Whatever the new hardware is, I hope it will eventually be too table.
The spell checker messes my message up. hope it will be rootable.
Yup… take a sample size of one and make wild, outrageous predictions based on that. Must be a really slow day.
True the sample size is 1, but it’s not a wild prediction. It’s not like prime or firetv come to other countries often enough to have a larger sample. Makes perfect sense to launch prime video and firetv together.
The original stick blows. The 2nd gen is barely an improvement. Based on these 2 releases, I won’t be getting anything less than a set top box as the 1st AND 2nd gens are absolutely perfect. As far as I am concerned, they can drop the stick entirely and I wouldn’t care or notice. I dislike like them both that much.
They won’t drop the stick because the sticks are the best selling devices in the streaming market. In fact, most of Roku’s sales come from sticks.
Best Buy is saying the normal FireTV Box is being discontinued…
A new FTV box needs more than the pathetic 8GB of storage. External storage is all but useless since it actually leaves much data still on the internal storage something no reviews except here actually seem to mention.
How about something to give NVidia Shield a run in the power department. I have read a couple of times something about Amazon entering the Gaming market more aggressively a box simliar to the Shield would make since in a “what if” sort of way.
If it is the trend, new country, new device. Could the mystery device that’s coming out July 31, be FireTV 3?
That would be awesome !!!!
I think a new stick is needed in the worst way this year since is an old 2014 device. Maybe a new ftv3 box will come out next year in 2017.
Too complicated. The simpler theory that this is just for the new Harry Potter book which releases midnight July 31st fits better so is probably the case. Personally I hope you are right though.