Amazon.com is finally no longer selling Apple TV or other streaming devices like Google's Chromecast to boost sales of its own Fire TV box and Fire TV Stick units.
The company's plan to discontinue selling competing product was first announced earlier in October.
Amazon's decision to pull out its competing devices from the store, as reported on Hot Hardware, due to the company being unable to get Prime Video the way it wants on competing devices. Another reason is that Amazon doesn't want to give a cut of its profits to a third party.
Amazon said, as reported on Apple Insider, it is important for the company to sell the streaming media players that can interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.
Prime Video and music components are becoming as important as a frequent shipping service in Amazon. Prime Video now has tens of millions of subscribers.
Amazon will continue sales on other devices that support Prime Video including Roku's hardware and consoles like Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's Playstation. Roku is more popular than Apple TV and is about even with Google's Chromecast.
Amazon's Fire TV, Apple TV, and Google's Chromecast are different in features altough they all seem to be relatively the same on the surface. Each one of them allows the users to share screens from other linked devices, but each one also links to its own manufacturer's preferred content delivery system.
Apple TV links to the App Store, Google's Chromecast links to Google Play and Amazon's Fire TV links to Amazon Prime.
The devices are also very different in prices. Apple TV costs nearly three times as much as Chromecast or Fire TV.
Meanwhile, the battle of the streaming media devices is heating up, as reported on USA Today. Apple launched its latest set top box which has more streaming apps that let the users to search for movies using Siri.
Google also launched an improved Chromecast Net Device in September. The device connects to the TV and lets the user watch apps such as Netflix and Sling TV. In addition, Chromecast's economical pricing makes it an easy purchase.
In the same month Amazon enhanced its Fire TV with voice support and the ability to watch 4K Ultra HD video.
Roku has also joined the competition by launching Roku 4 streaming set-top box with upgraded features include 4K Ultra HD streaming from sites such as Amazon Video, M-Go and Netflix. The device is arguably the most consumer-friendly in the segment.
Join the Conversation