Amazon’s FireTV ‘is absolutely not a games console’

Sitting under your TV and playing games does not a games console make.

That’s according to Amazon Kindle vice president Peter Larsen, anyhow, who told Engadget in an interview that Fire TV "isn’t trying to be a game console”.

Separately to that an Engadget reporter quotes Larsen on Twitter as saying that "this is absolutely not a game console".

All of which seems to be somewhat at odds with Amazon’s official messaging.

Amazon’s PR blurb itself says that FireTV beats out Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast for serious gamers because it comes preloaded with Splashtop to enable 3D gaming/remote desktop to TVs – watch out game consoles”.

And then of course there’s the dedicated Xbox-style gamepad that’s available for he device.

Oh, and there’s also Amazon Game Studios, complete with its first FireTV exclusive title Sev Zero, a Halo-style FPS. And the dedicated version of Minecraft.

All of which suggests that Amazon may have some work cut out ironing out its messaging. If it’s reluctant to pitch itself against the likes of PS4 and Xbox One that’s fine. But with such heavy investment in games development it clearly harbours some very lofty gaming ambitions – ambitions that gamers themselves will have to be convinced to buy in to if the device is to success.