Amazon Makes Good On Promise To Cease Sales Of Apple TV, Chromecast

At the start of October, it was reported that Amazon would be making the rather stark move of removing competing streaming devices from its store; namely those that didn't support Prime Video to the company's liking. This largely boils down to Amazon either being unable to get Prime Video the way it wants on competing devices, and that the company doesn't want to give a cut of its profits to a third-party. Ultimately, that lead Amazon to the decision of simply pulling those devices from its online store.

While some have likened this move to being anti-competitive, it's hard to grasp whether the legal system would agree. Amazon's defense is that since these devices don't support Prime Video, it doesn't want to sell products to its customers and have them assume that they will.

It seems like there's more than just that to do with this. Amazon could easily place a big message on the product pages for the Apple TV and Google Chromecast that highlights the lack of Prime Video support, but instead it just decided to remove the devices entirely. This will clearly result in the loss of some profit, but it could shift those potential buyers of those devices to go with Amazon's Fire brand instead.

As expected, neither the Apple TV or Chromecast are available any longer on Amazon's website. Over the past few years, Prime Video has become a major part of the company's portfolio, and it's eager to mimic the success that Netflix has had with its self-produced content.

One thing's for certain: Amazon has chosen the right time to make this move, as the launch of the show featuring the three legendary Top Gear performers will be launching in the year ahead. With its gung-ho Prime Video push, perhaps the company will have even more shows in store for us in the near-future as well.