Sources say Amazon readying an Android-based Web TV box competing with Apple TV and Roku, for March rollout
Amazon Gets Its TV Box Ready, Again — Amazon is gearing up to take on Apple and Roku, again. — Industry sources say Amazon is getting ready to launch a Web TV box …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is Amazon's second attempt at getting a TV box out the door: the Wall Street Journal reported back in October 2013 that Amazon was readying one for the holidays, and it slipped. Re/code's sources now put an Android-based device on a March timeline, though the report remains unconfirmed by Amazon itself.
The timing matters because the field is already moving. Sources point to a new Apple TV box with a possible App/Game Store arriving soon, while Roku answered the box business differently in January by licensing its platform into Hisense and TCL televisions. Meanwhile Amazon has been building the content side of the pitch — confirmed moves this month fold Lovefilm Instant into Prime for U.K. and German members from February 26, paired with Prime price increases there. The pickup was unusually broad: nine outlets including VentureBeat, PC Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times ran the story on day one.
First-order effects
- Apple and Roku gain a direct competitor whose hardware can be priced as an accessory to Prime, since Amazon's confirmed U.K./Germany Lovefilm-into-Prime move shows it treats the video catalog as a membership benefit rather than a product line.
- Roku's January push into Roku TVs via Hisense and TCL stops looking like expansion and starts looking like insurance — if Amazon undercuts box prices, Roku's revenue shifts toward licensing fees inside other makers' sets.
Second-order effects
- Content owners gain leverage: a third major box means Netflix, Hulu Plus, and studio partners have another bidder for placement and exclusives at launch, and Amazon must secure apps beyond its own catalog for the device to be credible against incumbents.
- Apple faces pressure to make the rumored App/Game Store real — if Amazon ships an Android-based box first, Apple's closed-apps Apple TV risks looking stale on the exact axis where the next round of competition is being defined.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, streaming hardware follows the console model: boxes sold near cost or below, with margin recovered through subscriptions — which would entrench Prime-style bundles and squeeze any player without a content or services engine behind its device.
- The Android basis of the rumored device points toward a fragmented living-room OS landscape, where Google's platform spreads across third-party TV hardware even without a dominant Google-branded player — a structure regulators and app developers would eventually have to treat as a market of competing walled gardens.
The trend: Streaming boxes are turning from standalone gadgets into cheap front-ends for subscription ecosystems, with Amazon's Prime content, Roku's TV licensing, and Apple's app-store ambitions each staking a different route to owning the living room.