You can buy pretty much anything through online retail behemoth Amazon, but now, the company has announced plans to stop selling certain streaming devices that compete with its own. Specifically, Amazon will drop Apple TV and Google Chromecast devices because they don’t “interact well” with Amazon’s own Prime Video, the company said in an email to marketplace sellers (via Bloomberg).
This change will take place on October 29, at which time no new listings for Apple TV and Chromecast devices will be allowed and existing product pages will be taken down.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, along with Roku’s devices, are not affected by this change. Whatever the case, this move is sure to cause some criticism.
Kevin Tofel of GameSpot sister site Zdnet shared his thoughts in a recent post.
“The real reason is more likely to do with Amazon wanting to sell its own Fire TV hardware,” he said. “That’s understandable, of course, but it’s short-sighted. Amazon would likely say otherwise since it will still sell streaming devices that do support Amazon Instant Video such as Roku, the Xbox, and Sony PlayStation.”
Below is Amazon’s full statement on the matter.
“Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime,” Amazon said. “It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.”
What do you make of Amazon’s decision? Let us know in the comments below.
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