• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Amazon FireTV Announced and Released [$99 box, $40 controller, game capable STB]

C

CrashPrime

Member
ClearData said:
Are you prompted to sign in/up to Amazon Prime on set up? Does it come with a free trial? Could you upload a video to YouTube?
Click to expand...

So far it prompted me to sign into wifi, did a lengthy firmware update, and played a tutorial video focusing heavily on voice search done in flash animation style. After that it prompted right away to setup parental controls the demo video said it would do a prime sign up afterwards but that didn't happen.

In the main UI now... Actually I think it had my user into already on the device.... Is that possible? I def didn't sign in.
 
F

fade_

Member
CrashPrime said:
Ok, mine just came. Who's got questions?

327135A8-5DA3-40CE-B1D3-7878CBEA0170_zpshk7pxb5s.jpg
Click to expand...

Care to sideload XBMC and see if local HD media can stream without any hitches? =P
 
tensuke

tensuke

Member
Still downloading the update. Probably 30% done by now. Blah. Should have set it up later when the network would be less congested. :p

Getting a feel for the controller in the meantime. It feels cheap and light without batteries, but nice and heavy with them. Some button presses are a bit loud, like L3/R3. D-Pad is pretty quiet, but you can press in the center of the d-pad and it makes an awful loud click sound. Feels a bit stiff atm, but it'll probably wear down. Don't know if it's hadouken-approved right now but hopefully I can get some street fighter on here to test. The sound of the L3/R3 buttons kind of cheapen it and make it sound hollow, as opposed to the DS4 where you just get a satisfying yet quiet click. Sticks are definitely looser than a DS4, but they pop back into the center really well. Can't tell how they play until I get a game up and running. I have small hands so using L1 and the left stick on an asymmetrical layout is kind of uncomfortable, but that's not really a controller fault as much as it is my hands fault. Overall, it doesn't feel as bad as it looks, but the true test will be how it performs in a game. Doubt I can expound much on that for a while though as long as my net is being slow, so refer to other kind posters for their thoughts on it.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
So, mine showed up this morning. I let it update while I ran out, came back and tried out the gaming side for a bit. Some observations:

- Amazon was nice enough not only to link my account to it in advance, they also pre-synced the controller. Having bought Kindles in the past, I expected the former, but not the latter. Nice touch!
- The controller is pretty decent. Feels more or less like a 360 controller to me. The digital pad is a little stiffer than I like, but better than the 360 one (which I hate)
- There are only about a dozen controller enabled games in the store at this point.
- There's a 'developer options' menu in the settings menu. All it lets you do is enable ADB, so sideloading might be possible.

I tried three games - Sev Zero, Grow (I think it is), and Sonic CD, which I got for free yesterday.

Sev Zero is a hybrid of a tower defense and third person shooter game. You place down towers to fight waves of aliens, but you also have to beam down yourself to help take everything out. Beating aliens generates money which you can use to place and/or upgrade your towers (all typical tower defense stuff). Graphics are nothing special (good for mobile, probably somewhere between PS2 and PS3 quality, but at least at 720p), but the frame rate was consistently solid.

Sonic CD is pretty much as advertised. Nice performance, and much more fun with the controller versus a touch screen.

The other game is pretty much a standard 'eat smaller stuff, get bigger, avoid getting eaten by bigger stuff' game. Definitely a mobile port, but nice enough looking and easy to figure out.

Overall, the interface is very snappy, the games all run at solid frame rates and there's no noticeable lag, and performance navigating around the system blows my old Roku out of the water. However, I haven't tried any of the non-gaming stuff yet. That's next. :)

EDIT: The controller is now back-ordered until April 24. Sucks if you wanted one to go along with the unit. They still should have considered a bundle...

EDIT2: Free space after installing those 3 games is about 4.6GB. There was barely 5GB of free space on the device out of the box. Space will probably become an issue without any external storage support.
 
F

fade_

Member
Damaniel said:
So, mine showed up this morning. I let it update while I ran out, came back and tried out the gaming side for a bit. Some observations:

- Amazon was nice enough not only to link my account to it in advance, they also pre-synced the controller. Having bought Kindles in the past, I expected the former, but not the latter. Nice touch!
- The controller is pretty decent. Feels more or less like a 360 controller to me. The digital pad is a little stiffer than I like, but better than the 360 one (which I hate)
- There are only about a dozen controller enabled games in the store at this point.
- There's a 'developer options' menu in the settings menu. All it lets you do is enable ADB, so sideloading might be possible.

I tried three games - Sev Zero, Grow (I think it is), and Sonic CD, which I got for free yesterday.

Sev Zero is a hybrid of a tower defense and third person shooter game. You place down towers to fight waves of aliens, but you also have to beam down yourself to help take everything out. Beating aliens generates money which you can use to place and/or upgrade your towers (all typical tower defense stuff). Graphics are nothing special (good for mobile, probably somewhere between PS2 and PS3 quality, but at least at 720p), but the frame rate was consistently solid.

Sonic CD is pretty much as advertised. Nice performance, and much more fun with the controller versus a touch screen.

The other game is pretty much a standard 'eat smaller stuff, get bigger, avoid getting eaten by bigger stuff' game. Definitely a mobile port, but nice enough looking and easy to figure out.

Overall, the interface is very snappy, the games all run at solid frame rates and there's no noticeable lag, and performance navigating around the system blows my old Roku out of the water. However, I haven't tried any of the non-gaming stuff yet. That's next. :)

EDIT: The controller is now back-ordered until April 24. Sucks if you wanted one to go along with the unit. They still should have considered a bundle...
Click to expand...

Since it's bluetooth theres no way to connect a wiimote or ps3 controller? If not Im sure someone will figure it out eventually.
 
C

CrashPrime

Member
fade_ said:
Since it's bluetooth theres no way to connect a wiimote or ps3 controller? If not Im sure someone will figure it out eventually.
Click to expand...

Nyko and MOGA are specifically mentioned in the pairing process. My dualshock 3 and 4 did not show up in pairing mode.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
Just tried video. Picked an episode of a TV show (Hoarders), pressed play, and it started playing immediately. As in maybe 200ms of delay between pressing play and seeing video. Not a hint of buffering. Slick as hell, honestly.

Only tried one voice search (Morgan Freeman), but it worked fine too.
 
V

Valkyr Junkie

Member
Took my controller out of the box and the right analog stick was stuck clicked in. Pulled it out, but the analog stick is really sticky and rough. Back it goes.
 
F

fade_

Member
plainr_ said:
Thanks for doing this. My interest in this just shot up quite a bit. If we can run apk's properly on this I will order one asap.

I may need another XBMC machine. :p
Click to expand...

Ya if it can run HD in xbmc I'm buying on immediately. Plex is great for local HD streaming too but to have the option of xbmc with all its addons along with the Fire's specs make it so much more attractive.
 
tensuke

tensuke

Member
Finally got in to the main interface lol. Paired the controller, pairs up nicely, downloading games now to try it. Tried pairing the DS4 (hold PS button+share for a few secs to put it in BT pairing mode), and while it does show up as 'wireless controller', the DS4 seems to turn off while it's trying to pair. Maybe my battery's low, but probably it just isn't supported at this stage. I think in due time it will be.
 
C

CrashPrime

Member
fade_ said:
Ya if it can run HD in xbmc I'm buying on immediately. Plex is great for local HD streaming too but to have the option of xbmc with all its addons along with the Fire's specs make it so much more attractive.
Click to expand...

Hitting the button to install some apks right now. First round is XBMC and hbogo. Reporting back with results soon :)
 
tensuke

tensuke

Member
Not a huge fan of the interface so far. On the Roku, you have a large channel list which is a grid of icons for your main screen. With this, you have to go down to the app category, choose your app library, and it's all in a long row (like the PS4's main screen). I think grids are the way to go for something like this, it's just so much wasted screen space. The 'store' part is a little confusing as well, I think they could have done a bit better presenting stuff and made use of the screen real estate you get on a TV. Will try sideloading something as my downloads continue.
 
R

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
tensuke said:
Not a huge fan of the interface so far. On the Roku, you have a large channel list which is a grid of icons for your main screen. With this, you have to go down to the app category, choose your app library, and it's all in a long row (like the PS4's main screen). I think grids are the way to go for something like this, it's just so much wasted screen space. The 'store' part is a little confusing as well, I think they could have done a bit better presenting stuff and made use of the screen real estate you get on a TV. Will try sideloading something as my downloads continue.
Click to expand...

Can you use voice commands though?

ex: "Launch Netflix"" or whatever?
 
tensuke

tensuke

Member
Raistlin said:
Can you use voice commands though?

ex: "Launch Netflix"" or whatever?
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, voice commands are just for search. However, if you have Netflix installed, you can just say "Netflix" and it will be the first search result, then you can press enter to open it (as it's already on your system). So in a roundabout way, you can open apps with voice search. Which is great news for me, because the interface is too much to muck around in looking for something imo.
 
B

brightsons

Member
Does it have an IR Port? If it doesn't could you plug in a USB IR Receiver (gotta be able to use my Logitech Harmony Remote)
How is plex, is it fast and responive? Does it support myplex?
Can you sideload games and emulators that have controller support?
 
S

Spring-Loaded

Member
stolen from me:

I found a chewed up GBA cartridge in the parking lot of where my dad worked. The label had been torn off so I couldn't tell what it was. I showed it to my dad and he said to toss it out since it had to be broken.

I forced it into my GBA SP and it worked! Turned out to be Golden Sun and the only save had like an hour-and-a-half playtime. I ended up playing that for about 40 hours and tracked down the sequel.
 
P

Prototype

Member
For those that have FireTV, how does it compare to Roku3?

I got one for my gf so she would stop using my PS3 for her shows. Only thing holding me back is that I wished FireTV allowed use of Google Play aps, since it's all android based, but from what I've read in this thread, Google Play aps won't work on FireTV.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Republic Of Gamers(ROG) Phone 6|6 pro is up for pre-order in US, $999, 16 or 18GB RAM, AMOLED 165hrz, Snapdragon 8 plus, releases OCT.20th
25
2K
alucard0712_rus replied
Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2: Everything you need to know
32
3K
CyberPanda replied
New Amazon Fire TV announced (4k): Game Edition w/ controller, Shovel Knight, DT $139
2 3 4 5
207
26K
show me your skeleton replied
Xbox Elite Controller |OT| That's a paddlin'
56 57 58 59 60
3K
407K
hikarutilmitt replied
NieR: Automata |OT2| You're thinking how much you want to **** this game aren't you?
21 22 23 24 25
1K
148K
JareBear: Remastered replied
Top Bottom