Amazon will stop selling Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast since those devices don’t “interact well” with Prime Video, the company said in an email to its sellers.
No new listings for the products will be allowed and posting of existing inventory will be removed October 29, reported Bloomberg. Prime Video doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware.
“Roku, Xbox, PlayStation, and Fire TV are excellent choices,” the company said in a statement, “Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.”
The announcement by Amazon comes just after both Apple and Google have released new versions of the Apple TV and Chromecast devices in the run-up to the holiday season.
The move by Amazon will no doubt cause much criticism and accusations of misusing market dominance. At the moment, Apple TV does not have an app that supports Amazon Prime Video, while Google’s Chromecast only allows screening of already purchased content from Amazon.
The two devices will of course remain available via the two companies’ own webstores as well via traditional CE sales outlets.
Until now, Amazon has not reached an agreement with Apple or Google for selling its content via iTunes or the Google Play stores. The reason for this seems to be the fact that Amazon does not want to pay a percentage of the sales through third-party shops such as iTunes and Play.
