Not to be totally upstaged by last week’s iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch announcements, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) launched a handful of new hardware products for its Amazon Fire brand. A new 7-inch Fire tablet for $50, a new Fire TV box for $100, a Fire Stick with voice remote for $50 and a Fire Kids Edition tablet for $100. The only thing missing, alas, was another Fire phone, a product that Amazon abandoned earlier this month.
The new $50 tablet is no surprise, nor are the upgrades to two of the larger tablets. What may be a slight surprise is that Amazon did not update its high-end 8.9-inch tablet. That appears to many observers to be a further admission that the high-end of consumer electronics devices belongs to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and competitors stray onto that playing field at their peril.
The Fire TV now supports 4K video and the voice remote. Combined the two products cost about $100, well below the $150 price tag for the base model of the new Apple TV device. Amazon also still offers its Fire Stick with standard remote for $40.
The company also added a gaming edition to its Fire TV lineup. The gaming edition includes a game controller, a Fire TV box, a 32GB microSD card and two free games for $140.
Amazon may be able to gain some traction in the gaming sector, even though it is populated with long-time players like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. It won’t be easy, but chasing Apple at the high-end is a proven loser. Just ask Samsung.
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