Amazon Fire TV Gives Developers a Powerful New Platform for Bringing Apps and Games to the Living Room

Amazon Fire TV Gives Developers a Powerful New Platform for Bringing Apps and Games to the Living Room

2K, AOL, Amazon Game Studios, Bloomberg, Clear Channel, Disney, EA, ESPN, Gameloft, Hulu, Mojang, Pandora, SEGA, SHOWTIME, Telltale, Ubisoft, Vevo, and many more developers launch their apps and games today for Fire TV

New tools released today enable developers to optimize their apps and games with the Fire TV controllers for multi-player functionality

Apps and games built for Android are compatible with Fire TV

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr. 2, 2014-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)-With today's launch of Amazon Fire TV, Amazon is opening up a new platform for developers to increase their reach and monetization in the living room. Amazon is releasing new developer tools today that allow developers to quickly and easily optimize PC, console or Android mobile apps and games for the new Fire TV. The new tools include sample code, as well as documentation and guidelines to help developers design and build living room experiences, including how to manage the input for the Fire game controller and Fire TV remote. To learn more or download the new tools, visit https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/.

Developers are already finding monetization success with the apps they offer for Kindle Fire and in the Amazon Appstore. Fire TV is the newest reason for developers to bring their apps and games to the Amazon platform, said Mike George, Vice President, Amazon Appstore and Games. Fire TV is an opportunity for a broad group of developers-whether it's existing Android developers or those focused on console, or PC development-to reach into the living room and engage a whole new set of customers who love entertainment. We already have many great developers on board like 2K, AOL, Bloomberg, Clear Channel, Disney, EA, ESPN, Gameloft, Hulu, Mojang, Pandora, SEGA, SHOWTIME, Telltale, Ubisoft, and Vevo-and with today's announcement we expect many more to join.

Fire TV supports second screen experiences using DIAL, an open standard that allows customers to discover and open apps on their television right from their tablet or phone. Extending apps to two screens gives developers the ability to take their games to the next level-creating truly immersive gaming experiences for customers through multi-player functionality. Existing Android developers will find developing for Fire TV is very familiar and will simply need to integrate with the new controllers to port their app to Fire TV. And, because the new Fire TV developer tools are available alongside the Mobile App SDK, existing Amazon APIs such as In-App Purchasing, Login with Amazon, and GameCircle are available for Fire TV and work the same way they do on other Fire OS devices.

With the launch of Fire TV, developers can receive 500,000 Amazon Coins through the Appstore Developer Select Program and create campaigns where customers earn those Coins when they purchase apps and games. This is in addition to the regular Appstore Developer Select benefits that include 500,000 mobile ad impressions, enhanced merchandising, AWS credits, and additional Amazon Coins incentives. More details on the Appstore Developer Select program can be found at http://developer.amazon.com/select.

Thousands of apps and games from developers including, 2K, AOL, Amazon Game Studios, Clear Channel, Disney, EA, ESPN, Gameloft, Hulu, Mojang, SEGA, Telltale, and Ubisoft will be available on Fire TV. Developers have already been impressed with the ease of development and how quickly their games can be ported to Fire TV. Here is what some developers who've been working with Fire TV have to say:

We are really excited to be developing Endless Skater for Fire TV, a platform that is so accessible to indie developers, said Steve Ganem, CEO of SuperVillain Studios. From day one, it was extremely easy to adapt our Kindle games for Fire TV and to work with Amazon. The Endless Skater experience feels right at home on an HDTV, and is so excellent with Fire game controller.

Fire TV is an innovative new platform that provides us the ability to bring a truly immersive gaming experience to the consumer's living room, said Baudouin Corman, VP of Publishing for the Americas, Gameloft. Customers can expect to see popular Gameloft titles, such as Asphalt 8: Airborne, Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, and Despicable Me: Minion Rush, optimized for Fire TV at launch.

Porting to Fire TV from our existing Android version was quick and the support from Amazon was excellent, said Johannes Vuorinen, CEO of Frogmind. Combined with how good BADLAND looks from a large HDTV made the decision to port to the Fire TV platform an easy one.

Fire TV offers our viewers another way to align their content preferences with their viewing habits, and will provide a premium environment for consumers to experience AOL On, said Ran Harnevo, President of Video at AOL. We believe it will be one of the most game-changing products on the market, and look forward to giving Amazon viewers on-demand access to AOL On, HuffPost Live, and our entire video library.

We're extremely pleased to have SHOWTIME available for Fire TV, and excited that our subscribers have a great new way to experience SHOWTIME ANYTIME on their televisions, said Tom Christie, President, Distribution, Business Development, and Network Operations, Showtime Networks Inc. We think our viewers will love watching current and past seasons of our award-winning original series including HOMELAND, RAY DONOVAN and MASTERS OF SEX, along with box office hits, documentaries, specials and hard-hitting live sports on Fire TV.

Creating ubiquity for our authenticated WATCH products adds tremendous value to the multichannel video subscription, and collaborating with Amazon to make our networks available on the new Fire TV strengt

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