亚马逊强势进军视频游戏领域

    对于视频游戏业务，亚马逊(Amazon)是极其认真的。近日，这家电商巨头斥资10亿美元，收购了在线社交视频公司Twitch，后者的月活跃玩家达到5500万人，观看由100多万游戏制作者创造的内容，这些内容的合计时间达150亿分钟。收购Twitch标志着亚马逊又在进军全球视频游戏领域的征途中迈出了坚实一步。

    为了开展游戏业务，这家公司已经重新打造了全新的硬件生态系统。今年年初，亚马逊收购了游戏开发商Double Helix，这样，它就可以为亚马逊的客户开发独家游戏。韦德布什证券公司（Wedbush Securities）分析师迈克尔•帕切特指出，现如今，在各种设备上玩视频游戏的人越来越多，人们每天花在游戏上的时间也越来越长，视频游戏已经和电影电视剧同样重要，成为吸引新客户、维系老客户的利器。

    帕切特还指出，自从亚马逊于2007年推出Kindle以来，这款电子阅读器的累计销量已经达到大约1000万台。他预计，亚马逊今年还将卖出500万台Fire TV电视和200万部Fire Phone手机。要知道光在美国就有4亿台电视，如今亚马逊正与英伟达（Nvidia）、维尔福（Valve）、美加狮（Mad Catz）、Ouya和Alienware等公司一道，杀入一度由索尼(Sony)、微软(Microsoft)、任天堂(Nintendo)等公司主宰的家庭电子娱乐产业。帕切特认为，这个领域完全有群雄逐鹿的空间，而开发独家游戏将有助于亚马逊在竞争中抢占先机。

    在亚马逊宣布即将收购Twitch之前，亚马逊游戏（Amazon Games）副总裁麦克•弗拉兹尼接受了《财富》(Fortune)杂志的专访。他谈论了跨平台游戏的演化进程，该公司打算如何创新利用Fire电视、Fire Phone手机和Kindle来吸引玩家。我们在上周二再次采访他，询问Twitch将在亚马逊的游戏体系中扮演何种角色。以下是这次采访的文字记录，有删节。

    财富：Twitch将在亚马逊的视频游戏生态系统中扮演何种角色？

    弗拉兹尼：Twitch为其社区打造的社交视频平台很有创新性，亚马逊对这家公司仰慕已久，我们希望Twitch能继续做它最擅长的事情。首先，我们希望Twitch继续发展。我们希望能从Twitch身上学到东西，另外随着时间的推移，我们也希望能找到合适的方式，来帮助他们更快地开发游戏。

    在Fire电视的设计过程中，怎样融入了视频游戏部分？

    当我们开始考虑Fire TV时，我们马上意识到，最重要的是你能通过它享受到的各种内容，比如电影、电视、音乐、照片，以及针对小孩子的FreeTime功能，当然还有游戏。我们想确保用户通过语音搜索就能轻易地找到这些内容。另外我们想以很划算的价格把它提供给用户。

    另外，我们也想以非常合理的价格，通过大量好玩的游戏，为用户提供卓越的游戏体验。我们既想提供大量用户已经了解和喜欢的游戏，比如《狂野飙车8》(Ashpalt 8)和《我的世界》(Minecraft)等，也想提供新的游戏体验。这就是为什么我们要开发一款名叫《Sev Zero：空中支援》(Sev Zero: Air Support)的独家游戏。这款游戏结合了射击和塔防元素，同时还可以与另一台设备进行联机。为了以优惠的价格提供一系列好游戏，硬件和用户体验都得跟上。Fire TV有2GB的RAM，足以使我们制作大量游戏。

    Amazon is serious about video games. The e-commerce giant just paid $1 billion to acquire online social video company Twitch, which has a devoted monthly fan base of over 55 million gamers watching 15 billion minutes of content created by over 1 million game broadcasters. It’s the latest example of Amazon investing heavily in the burgeoning global video game space.

    The company has built its new hardware ecosystem from the ground up with gaming in mind. Amazon acquired developer developer Double Helix Games earlier this year, so it could create exclusive games for its customers. With more people gaming across more devices than ever before—and spending more time each day doing—video games are becoming just as important as movies and television shows in attracting new customers and keeping current subscribers entertained, saysWedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

    Amazon sells approximately 10 million Kindles since the e-reader debuted 2007, according to Pachter, who forecasts the company will also sell 5 million Fire TVs and 2 million Fire Phones this year. With 400 million TVs in the U.S alone, Amazon is entering the domain dominated by Sony , Microsoft and Nintendo at the same time as companies like Nvidia, Valve, Mad Catz, Ouya and Alienware are targeting the living room. Pachter believes there’s room for multiplayer players in this space and that exclusive games could give Amazon and edge on the competition.

    Mike Frazzini, vice president of Amazon Games, discusses the evolution of cross-platform gaming and how the company plans to use Fire TV, Fire phone and Kindle to connect gamers in new ways. Frazzini spoke with Fortune prior to the news Amazon was acquiring Twitch. We reached out Tuesday and asked him about the role Twitch will serve in Amazon’s gaming system. An edited and condensed interview follows.

    Fortune: What role will Twitch play within Amazon’s video game ecosystem?

    Frazzini: Amazon has long admired Twitch for the innovative social video platform that they’ve created for their community, and we want Twitch to keep doing what they do best. First and foremost, we want Twitch to just keep going. We look forward to learning from Twitch, and over time finding the right ways to help them move faster inventing on behalf of the community.

    How were video games part of the design process for Fire TV?

    When we started thinking about Fire TV, we knew right away that it would be all about the range of content you can enjoy through the device — movies, TV, music, photos, FreeTime for kids, and of course games. We wanted to make sure customers could find and discover content easily and intuitively using voice search. And we wanted to offer it all at a great price.

    We also wanted to be able to offer customers a great gaming experience with a large selection of fun games, at super affordable prices. We wanted both a breadth of games that customers already know and love, like Ashpalt 8 and Minecraft, as well as offering new experiences. That’s one of the reasons we built Sev Zero: Air Support – an exclusive game that combines tower defense with a shooter, and the ability to play co-op with a second screen. In order to deliver a great selection of games at great prices, we needed the hardware and the user experience to work with games. Fire TV comes with 2GB of RAM, for example, which helps a lot with the types of games that we were able to make available.