It is no secret that Amazon and Google are not the best of friends. They do compete on the app front with both companies offering a fully fledged app store. However, more recently, Amazon has been looking to take on Google (and its associates) on the hardware front too. While the Amazon Fire Phone has become infamous for its lack of sales, other hardware elements, like the Fire TV Stick, Amazon’s Fire TV and so on, have become real competition for the likes of Google’s Chromecast, the Nexus Player and other streaming devices.
One of the big benefits of Amazon’s media devices is that they come with direct access to Amazon’s Instant Video service. So if you are a prime member, the Amazon devices make sense. Especially, as an Android version of the Instant Video app seems extremely hard to come by with Amazon often blocking any attempt for non-Amazon device owners to use the app. Well, it now seems that Amazon is preparing to take the battle to the next level to ensure their media devices success. A report from Bloomberg has emerged today starting that Amazon intend to stop selling all Google devices on Amazon. This will presumably include the likes of the Chromecast and the Nexus Player among others.
The information comes from a reported email which was sent out to retailers detailing that new listings of Google (and Apple) related hardware could not be added to Amazon. Further adding, that all existing inventory and postings will be removed come October 29th. According to details obtained from the email “It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.”
As the company has only recently announced the launch of their next-gen streaming device, the Fire TV (2015), it does make for interesting timing and seems in the run-up to the Holiday period, the only Amazon/Apple/Google streaming product you will be able to buy through Amazon will be one of the Fire TV devices. How this will affect sales remains to be seen but does represent an interesting move in the battle for our living room entertainment.