Fresh from launching its Fire TV set-top box, Amazon has unveiled another gadget designed to play music, video and games on TV sets.
Fire TV Stick is a $39 device that plugs into a television’s HDMI port, and will compete directly with Google’s Chromecast when it goes on sale in the US on 19 November.
Amazon is already talking up the rivalry, promising on its website that the Fire TV Stick will offer “4x the storage and 2x the memory of Chromecast”, although with millions of the latter sold already, Amazon has some catching up to do.
Like Chromecast and the similar Roku Streaming Stick, Amazon’s new device is focused on streaming entertainment. Once plugged in to a TV, it will be able to access Amazon’s own video-on-demand and music services, as well as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Crackle for video and Spotify and Pandora for music.
Games available at launch will include Flappy Birds Family – the follow-up to popular mobile game Flappy Bird – as well as Tetris and games based on Disney films Monsters University and Toy Story.
Twitch, the games video-streaming service that Amazon is buying for almost $1bn, will also be supported by the Fire TV Stick, providing it with another route into the living room.
The device will be controlled via a physical remote that ships with it, as well as by companion apps for Android and iOS. Like the Fire TV, it will also support voice search.
Fire TV Stick will be sold alongside the $99 Fire TV box, which went on sale in the US in April, then the UK this month.
Amazon has not yet announced a UK launch date for the newer device, although based on its strategy with hardware like the Fire TV, Fire Phone and Kindle Fire tablets, the UK is likely to be among the first non-US countries to get the gadget.
