Update: In a new blog post, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear revealed that Amazon has indeed acquired the game-streaming service.
“Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster.
“We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.”
A month ago Google was ready to buy up Twitch TV for the tune of $1 billion. Now it appears that Amazon, not Google, plans to snag the game-centric streaming service in an effort to pull the rug underneath the tech giant.
The Information reports that the deal is in “late stage talks” according to “two people close to the matter”, and that we could hear a formal announcement soon enough.
Nothing has been confirmed at the time of writing, and Google could very well still be planning on snagging Twitch.
Now that Google owns YouTube, adding Twitch to its roster could very well ignite a monopoly on streaming services. Google further received major flak from YouTube users after its poorly-managed Google+ integration into the service, and it stands to reason they may muddle up Twitch with the same attempts to cross social platforms with video streaming.
Amazon stands to make substantial gains if the deal is indeed true, as Twitch is quite influential in the gaming sector. It’s also quite lucrative, and the online-retailer-turned-hardware-maker could boost profits as well as have an impact in the gaming industry.
It will be interesting to see what happens, but Twitch users –and streamers — are no-doubt looking at this acquisition with trepidation, as big companies are wont to move things around (think of YouTube’s now-mandatory Google+ logins) and let the dust settle where it may.
