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Using Amazon's Fire TV gamepad (surprise: it's pretty good!)
Surprising no one, Amazon's Fire TV gamepad is exactly what we already saw pass through the Brazilian FCC recently. In those pictures, however, it looked rough. In real life, thankfully, it's a much nicer piece of hardware. We've just spent 10 minutes playing Minecraft on a Fire TV at the event, and came away fairly impressed. It feels an awful lot like an Xbox 360 gamepad, most specifically the dual analog sticks. We've got more nuanced impressions beyond the break, so head below with us!
Here's Amazon's gamepad: standard controller layout, media functionality for $40
We all expected this, right? Yes, Amazon has a game controller, and it works with the company's newly announced Fire TV. Sure, you could use the set-top box's remote or an upcoming custom app to play games, but there's a dedicated controller too that's ready to wrangle Minecraft Pocket Edition, NBA 2K14 and titles from other big-name developers Ubisoft and Take-Two. "The controller is comfortable; it's familiar," noted Amazon Games' Mike Frazzini. As you might expect, this means that there's a four-button, dual-thumbstick and d-pad layout similar to the Xbox's option. With Amazon's offering, there are skip and play/pause media controls along the bottom edge with navigation controls placed front and center. There's even a GameCircle button that offers easy access to scores and achievements. And yes, dual triggers and a pair of shoulder buttons rest along the top edge.
Amazon launches Fire TV, an Android-powered streaming and gaming set-top box for $99
We've been waiting for it for quite some time, but now Amazon is finally ready to make its play for the living room. Fire TV is not a barebones device like the Chromecast; it's a powerful Android-driven platform with ties to the broader Amazon ecosystem. Inside the slim black plastic box is a quad-core CPU with a full 2GB of RAM -- that makes it more akin to a high-end smartphone than your typical streaming device. And it's incredibly slim, shorter than a dime, with barely enough clearance for the small selection of ports around back, which includes the standard HDMI, as well as optical audio and Ethernet. The interface is incredibly image-heavy. Browsing through the Amazon video store is basically just scrolling through an endless barrage of movie posters presented in a moving 3D bar. And, at least during the demo, the hardware churned through the slick UI with nary a hiccup in sight. But far more impressive was how quick videos were to load. Pressing play on almost any video instantaneously launched the movie or show. And we mean instantaneously. There was no pause, lag or loading screen -- it's impressive to say the least.
Reported Amazon game controller appears in pictures
Amazon is probably making a game console, and today we've got a better idea of what that console's controller looks like thanks to Dave Zatz and the Brazilian FCC. The standards are all there: two offset, concave analog sticks; four buttons (A/B/X/Y) on the right front; a d-pad in the lower left; and triggers/shoulder buttons around back/up top. What's weird about this particular controller, however, are the other buttons. A slew of media controls sit at the bottom (play, fast-forward, rewind), and in the middle there are four buttons: Home, Back, Menu... wait a minute! These are Android buttons! Either Amazon's building a controller for Android or the console it's making is Android-based (we're guessing the latter). Head below for more!
