Posted Mon Aug 25, 2014 at 01:11 PM PDT by Trevor Ruben
Shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon's intention to purchase Twitch, Amazon itself put out an official statement regarding the acquisition. It's happening. Amazon is purchasing Twitch for $970 million in cash.
July saw 55 million unique visitors for the growing video game streaming website. Twitch's popularity of late has attracted more than just Amazon's interest. Google was reportedly attempting to make a purchase as well. It seems Amazon won out in the end. Jeff Beezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, had this to say:
"Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old."
The acquisition has been approved by Twitch shareholders.
"Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming," said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. "Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world."
According to the press release, "the acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2014."
Source: Amazon
See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.