According to a report from The Information, Twitch may have another party interested in its video game streaming service. While Google was thought to be the forerunner that would pick up the company for $1 billion based on earlier reports, it appears that Amazon may be a contender to acquire the service for the same $1 billion price tag.
Two sources tell The Information that Twitch and Amazon have entered into “late stage talks” that would see the online retailer picking up the popular streaming platform. No information on the signing of a deal has been made public, but one person that is close to the transaction indicated that an announcement could be coming shortly.
The news of Amazon’s interest in the company comes after several reports that Google was buying the Justin.tv successor. VentureBeat claimed last month that a deal had been signed between the two companies, while Variety reported in May that a deal was reached. Both sourced pinned the deal at being worth at least $1 billion.
If Amazon was in talks to purchase the streaming service as the report states, it could provide a good reason as to why a deal between Google and Twitch has yet to be announced. If there were more than one company involved, it could have come down to a bidding war between Amazon and Google, with the decision coming down to which company offers better terms on the same purchase price.
Twitch has undergone a number of changes recently, irritating its 55 million visitors the service is said to pull in per month. After the shuttering of the companies previous service Justin.tv, Twitch changed the way videos were stored and started instituting audio muting for copyrighted materials through Audible Magic. After an “ask me anything” session on Reddit with CEO Emmett Shear, the company backtracked on some video limits and added an appeal system for muted audio.
