We thought it would be Youtube, but we thought wrong: Amazon is the company set to acquire Twitch for a massive stake of approximately $970 million. The deal will be finalized sometime before the end of 2014 and counters the previous reports that Youtube was buying the company.
“Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming,” stated Twitch CEO Emmett Shear in today’s press release. “Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world.”
So now to ponder how Amazon will integrate Twitch into their many services, or if they even plan to do so. I can see Fire TV benefitting heavily off of exclusive Twitch features… not to mention Amazon’s retailer. Amazon can now integrate a buy button” feature within every stream, making buying the games you’re watching as easy as a mouse click. That may not sound like the best thing to most people, but at least streamers can rest assured that Youtube won’t be integrating its Google+ commenting system into Twitch. Talk about Yucks-ville!
Why Amazon.com, Why?, Why?, WHY?!!!!!! (Crying & Sobbing)