14 DAY TRIAL // Netflix has been flying high lately, spurred by great financial results in the fourth quarter, growing subscriber numbers, international expansion and so on. But things are about to get tougher now that there are clear signs that the service is about to get some real competition for the first time, as Amazon plans to offer its own unlimited movie and TV show streaming service.
Engadget got its hands on some screen shots showing a streaming service, offered as part of Amazon Prime, the free-two day shipping premium service. However, video streaming is not available to users yet, perhaps not even in testing, and Amazon hasn't confirmed any plans of this sort.
Existing Prime subscribers will be able to access for free the 5,000 titles Amazon already offers for streaming. They're only offered in SD quality, but it's a cheaper option to Netflix's streaming-only service.
Amazon's Prime service is $79 per year. The service currently includes free, two-day shipping making it quite useful for avid buyers. The company apparently plans to bundle free movie streaming at no extra cost.
Netflix's Watch Instantly will set you back $95.88 per year. For now, Netflix's advantages are higher quality streams and a broader catalogue, about 20,000 titles.
Amazon's service is unconfirmed of course, but there have been several rumors about a streaming offering from the company. Users can already buy digital copies of movies and TV shows or rent them via Amazon and the selection is wider than the streaming one. There are also HD copies. It is also buying European streaming service Lovefilm.
But Neflix has been really successful at getting people to warm up to online streaming. It has also struck plenty of content deals, for large sums, to secure the content it currently offers.
Amazon may be the only company to pose a significant threat to Netflix at this point. It has the capability to handle the bandwidth demands video streaming has and the money to sign deals with content makers.