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Amazon Game Studios decides to play nice with iPad
When Amazon first announced it would be developing its own gaming apps under the name Amazon Game Studios, it was easy to imagine the software the group was working on would be exclusive to the company's own devices. The new release of Sev Zero: Air Support makes it clear that the web's largest retailer isn't planning on ignoring iOS after all. The new game is actually a companion app for the full Sev Zero title, which happens to be an Amazon Fire TV exclusive. The Air Support app lets a second player jump in to provide some help to the main player, so it makes a lot of sense that it would end up appearing on the iPad, as well as Android devices. A companion app is definitely a bonus for Fire TV owners, and I'm sure Amazon would like it to serve as an incentive for iPad owners to invest in the streaming box as well. Whether Amazon Game Studios will see fit to produce any standalone titles that cross platform lines remains to be seen, though chances are likely slim.
Amazon lets Fire TV and Android gamers work together in two-player mode
If you heard that Amazon was launching an app on Google Play, you'd be entitled to hope that it'd be the long-awaited Instant Video for Android. Prepare to be disappointed, since the company's actually released Sev Zero: Air Support for tablets that don't have the words "kindle" and "fire" in their name. It's a companion piece to the Amazon-made Sev Zero game that debuted on the Fire TV, enabling a second player to join in on the tower defense-cum-fps-style fun. Still, maybe next time on that whole video app, please Jeff?
Amazon Fire TV lineup trailer has dinosaurs, lasers, and laser dinosaurs
Amazon announced a plethora of development partners when it revealed Amazon Fire TV, its new streaming video and games device. While Mojang's Minecraft got top billing during Amazon's Wednesday presentation, the company's own Amazon Game Studios has plenty in the works as demonstrated by this trailer. For a device Amazon deems "not a game console," Fire TV has some fetching and very traditional looking games in the works based on this teaser. A side-scrolling platformer where you play as a caveman clubbing dinosaurs and then inexplicably disintegrating dinosaurs with a giant laser; a soft-colored world of papercraft woodland animals not dissimilar to Tearaway; and what looks like a turn-based medieval RPG; Amazon Fire TV will cover its genre bases if nothing else. There's even another platformer that looks like some bizarre version of the Jetsons, but you control Ernie from Sesame Street's doppelganger as he shoots aliens. While Ernie Shoots All the Aliens isn't a likely title for Amazon Game Studios' sci-fi platformer, the teaser doesn't provide titles for that game or any of the others in this lineup. It also doesn't say what developers in Amazon's stable are working on what games. Amazon acquired Double Helix, developer of Killer Instinct and Strider, in February. Far Cry 2 and Splinter Cell designer Clint Hocking announced he'd joined Amazon alongside Portal creator Kim Swift on Wednesday as well. The potential talent behind these new games makes them all the more mysterious. Except for the one about dinosaurs. That seems pretty straightforward. [Images: Amazon]
