Amazon plans to launch a game streaming service in 2020

A recent report suggests that Amazon is preparing to launch its own game streaming service by Christmas 2020.

According to two people familiar with the plans at Amazon, the company will announce their new game streaming service early next year. The sources added that hiring for Amazon’s game streaming project has already begun. The project is being described internally as a new initiative within Amazon’s Web Services division.

A direct quote from one of the job postings allegedly said, “we believe the evolution that began with arcade communities a quarter at a time, growing to the live streams and esports of today, will continue to a future where everyone is a gamer and every gamer can create, compete, collaborate and connect with others at massive scales.” The sources say that another job posting explained that Amazon want to drive innovation in the games industry with services such as game streaming.

Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities Analyst told CNET, who originally reported this news, that there is no way that Amazon would allow Microsoft and Sony to launch Project Scarlett and the PlayStation 5 without having their own presence.

Rumours of a game streaming service from Amazon began surfacing earlier this year, and it’s widely accepted that the company has already begun talks with developers and publishers about bringing their games to the new service.

If this news is true, then it ties in very well with Amazon’s new GameOn service. This service allows game developers to integrate competitions across multiple platforms, including leagues and leaderboards.

This news comes in the same week as the launch of Google’s Stadia game streaming service. So far Stadia has gotten off to a bumpy start, with invite codes not being sent out in time for early adopters to use them with their Founder’s Edition controllers, and a number of key features missing from the service at launch.

It’s still early days for Stadia, but so far the user backlash has consisted of regret over the lack of key features, such as 4K streaming, as well as games like Destiny 2 having issues due to a lack of players. Whether or not Amazon would be able to do a better job with their own service remains to be seen.