Amazon is making a set top box too

If you thought Valve would be the last company to crowd into the already cramped set-top-box industry, think again, as online retail giant Amazon is also looking to get into the game, with plans for its own media device pushing for a release sometime before Christmas.

Currently it's codenamed Cinammon, and will be capable of playing games, streaming movies and running apps much like currently available devices from the likes of Apple, Roku, Western Digital and a whole host of others, all of which are trying to tap into the market not occupied by console gamers, who have all this functionality and more built into their system's dashboard.

Maybe something like this?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is already in talks with several media companies to try and get compatible apps working on the device as soon as possible – that means Netflix, Ace Films and all the others you usually find on your little media box.

However, Amazon is in a unique position compared to the others – save perhaps Apple – as it has a good relationship with a lot of movie studios and other content producers already due to its sale of hard-copy media. Whether that can be leveraged to provide a digital only version though, remains to be seen.

One service we can guarantee that will work out of the box though, is of course Love Film (Amazon Instant Video in the US) which the retail giant bought back from the people it sold its DVD rental business too and now uses to compete directly with Netflix.

KitGuru Says: What do we reckon on this one guys? Is Amazon the kind of company you'd trust with your media viewing?

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