Amazon Acquires Twitch for $970 Million

Well, that didn’t go as planned. Exactly one month ago, word on the street was that Google was all set to buy online streaming service Twitch Interactive for $1 billion. It appears that the only thing about those reports that was accurate was the $1 billion price tag (actually, $970 million), because Amazon today announced that it is the owner of Twitch.
 
“Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
 
Twitch CEO Emmett Shear championed the movie on the company’s official blog, writing:
  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.
 
Twitch allows console (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, etc.) and PC users to broadcast their gameplay to others via the internet. For those that just like to sit back and watch other people do all the hard work in popular video games, it can be quite an amusing pastime.
 
Twitch has also been used more recently to livestream press conference from major shows like E3 and Valve’s “The International” gaming tournament.
 
According to Amazon, Twitch had over 55 million unique visitors during the month of July alone ad served more than 15 billion minutes of content.