Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Speaker 1: You know you could buy a TV on Amazon, but
Speaker 1: did you know you could buy a TV from Amazon?
Speaker 1: What began about eight years ago as fire TV, the
Speaker 1: tech Giants connected TV operating system, has morphed from devices
Speaker 1: that bring streaming to the living room into a line
Speaker 1: of TV sets themselves. And our next guest, Daniel Rausch,
Speaker 1: VP of Entertainment Devices and Services at Amazon, has the
Speaker 1: very latest on fire TV and what it means for
Speaker 1: the company. More with him in just a moment. We
Speaker 1: are back with Daniel Rausch, who oversees the fire TV
Speaker 1: business at Amazon. Thanks for taking the time today, Daniel, Hey, Andrew,
Speaker 1: great to be here. Thanks a lot for having me cool.
Speaker 1: I want to start with you explaining what the fire
Speaker 1: TV brand entails, because it's a bit like and maybe
Speaker 1: I just have Easter on the brain here. It's a
Speaker 1: bit like the Trinity doctrine with the Father and the
Speaker 1: Son and the Holy Ghost. It's it's fire TV is
Speaker 1: a stick, it's a cube, it's its own line of TVs,
Speaker 1: it powers other TVs. I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: we get it all straight. So tell us what exactly
Speaker 1: the brand is all about. That's that's that's a great question, um,
Speaker 1: and I get that there are many different products to
Speaker 1: account for. I think the easiest way to understand fire
Speaker 1: TV is really think about what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: for customers. It's it's about delivering the fire TV experience,
Speaker 1: and that's all about making streaming, you know, really straightforward
Speaker 1: and simple and possible across any screen customers want. And
Speaker 1: that might be you know, an older TV that you're
Speaker 1: trying to upgrade. You might use to fire TV stick
Speaker 1: or a fire TVQ that's a dedicated streaming media device.
Speaker 1: And that's how we started the business. As you said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think about eight years ago, and you know,
Speaker 1: more recently, we take that same content experience, that platform
Speaker 1: that helps us stream and put it into our partner
Speaker 1: TVs and those are names like Tcttle and High Sense
Speaker 1: and other sort of household familiars. And we've also most
Speaker 1: recently launched our own lineup of Amazon built TVs so
Speaker 1: we can invent even faster. So I think for customers,
Speaker 1: what really matters is they can get access to that
Speaker 1: fire TV experience all the way from a you know,
Speaker 1: twenty nine dollars sticks say, if they're looking to upgrade
Speaker 1: you know, the TV in the den, or they can
Speaker 1: you know, grab one of our new Omnique laed TVs
Speaker 1: for the very best of the fire TV experience. But
Speaker 1: what I also want people to understand is how important
Speaker 1: a business this is to Amazon and just what a
Speaker 1: big business this is in general. Because you're talking about
Speaker 1: sort of like the central nervous system for TVs which
Speaker 1: allows you to be in a position to drive advertising revenue,
Speaker 1: You're collecting user data. How important is it, How valuable
Speaker 1: is it to sort of be the brain of the
Speaker 1: TV experience? From a business perspective, Well, I think you
Speaker 1: know again, I think the way we think about the
Speaker 1: business is really just rooting it in how successful we
Speaker 1: can be for customers. That is how we think about
Speaker 1: any of our businesses at Amazon, and we are humbled
Speaker 1: with that success. We recently crossed the point with our
Speaker 1: most recent announcements. We talked about crossing two hundred million
Speaker 1: device sales, and that's a big global business. We sell
Speaker 1: fire TV in over eighty countries, worldwide, and so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we're making a meaningful impact bringing streaming to
Speaker 1: living rooms and elsewhere in the house for customers globally.
Speaker 1: We're humbled with that success again and we'll just keep
Speaker 1: growing from there. And that device count I assume means
Speaker 1: fire TV not just Amazon's own sets, but the other
Speaker 1: OEMs and the sticks, the cubes all together, that's two
Speaker 1: hundred million. That's right. Yeah, that's right, so across that
Speaker 1: full surface area. But to give you a sense of,
Speaker 1: you know, where the growth the engines of growth, I
Speaker 1: guess TV's most recently became the fastest growing part of
Speaker 1: the fire TV portfolio overall. So you know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: customers buy or streaming media player products. They love the sticks,
Speaker 1: you know, the cube is a beloved products you can
Speaker 1: speak to from across the room. Customers love that. But
Speaker 1: TVs are now the fastest growing part of the fire
Speaker 1: TV portfolio overall, whether that's products that we're building with
Speaker 1: partners like TCL, High Sense, Shall Meet others, or the
Speaker 1: Amazon built TVs, which we most recently updated the product lineup. Now,
Speaker 1: to some degree, the stats that you're putting out there
Speaker 1: don't strike me as surprising. Considering and correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. But even when you look beyond Amazon other
Speaker 1: brands in this space, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: big companies in this space, the dongles, to use my
Speaker 1: favorite word of the world, the dicks, the cubes, whatever
Speaker 1: form factors that seems to have served in the past
Speaker 1: several years, those seems to be going out of style.
Speaker 1: And it is sort of the embedded experience, whether it's
Speaker 1: your own brand or somewhere else, is that that's really
Speaker 1: where the streaming TV business is going. Correct, Well, I
Speaker 1: think you know, customers want they always want a simpler experience,
Speaker 1: and you know, no one wants a you know, a
Speaker 1: TV that has tons of different things attached to it
Speaker 1: to get the experience they want. The good news about
Speaker 1: fire TV product line is again we haven't a way
Speaker 1: to upgrade that old TV simply with a stick or
Speaker 1: a cube or to get the OS you know, directly
Speaker 1: embedded out of the box. There's incredible staying power in
Speaker 1: the streaming media player part of the business. And I
Speaker 1: think that's because if you have a TV that you know,
Speaker 1: you still you're fine with the picture quality of it's fine,
Speaker 1: You're fine on the brightness and you just want it
Speaker 1: to be a better actually smart TV. There's a great
Speaker 1: fire TV option for you, and so there's you know,
Speaker 1: if you ask me five years ago where I thought
Speaker 1: the streaming media player business would be, I would not
Speaker 1: think it is as resilient as it actually is today
Speaker 1: with customers updating their TVs. Sure, and you know, you're also,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, you're in a pretty crowded space with
Speaker 1: some big players. And so when you throw a number
Speaker 1: out there, like two hundred million devices, I'm curious how
Speaker 1: that translates to something like market share because as big
Speaker 1: as the fire TV business is, I've seen data recently
Speaker 1: suggesting that your share is moving up. But in the
Speaker 1: US this is still a Roku dominated business. Overseas, it's
Speaker 1: still an Android or Google dominated business. So how are
Speaker 1: you doing in terms of advancing in terms of market share? Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at if you look at how we
Speaker 1: think about the business, we're just trying to be successful
Speaker 1: for customers. But we are the world's most popular streaming
Speaker 1: media player. You know, I was for the Product News.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll end up talking about here shortly. I
Speaker 1: was in London, and you know, we were talking about
Speaker 1: expansions to Europe, where the most popular streaming media player
Speaker 1: in the UK and in Germany, which were the two
Speaker 1: countries that were focused on our announcements. So I think
Speaker 1: if you look across the globe, Japan is certainly a
Speaker 1: place for the most popular streaming media player. I think
Speaker 1: it's something where you have to piece together how customers
Speaker 1: are accessing their content. And Fire TV, having sold two
Speaker 1: hundred million devices is certainly, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: most important streaming media players that there is, got it.
Speaker 1: So with your latest announcement, as you mentioned, we're at
Speaker 1: two hundred million, there's been an international expansion and also
Speaker 1: there's now new iterations of the Fire branded TVs, including
Speaker 1: a new more affordable line of those TVs. So talk
Speaker 1: to me about this evolution here in terms of the
Speaker 1: TV piece of this business. Yeah, So with our Amazon
Speaker 1: built TVs, we recently expanded the lineup of our omni
Speaker 1: q led TVs and that's really just about resetting customers
Speaker 1: expectations for what TVs should be able to do. Your
Speaker 1: TV is off over twenty hours a day. It's probably
Speaker 1: also the biggest technology investment you make in your home
Speaker 1: is the one or more TVs that you have when
Speaker 1: you add up the math in terms of sort of
Speaker 1: smart devices that should be actually smart in your home,
Speaker 1: and our Omnique LED TVs are all about being actually smart,
Speaker 1: useful and beautiful for you all throughout the day. We
Speaker 1: had those in sixty five and seventy five inch models.
Speaker 1: We extended the lineup so that customers can get those
Speaker 1: into more places in their home. That was the first
Speaker 1: bit of product news. It's sort of our very best
Speaker 1: TVs and expanding that lineup. The second part of the
Speaker 1: product news and our TVs was extending on the value end,
Speaker 1: So we actually released a new series of TVs, the
Speaker 1: two series, that's all about bringing that great, high quality
Speaker 1: fire TV streaming experience to new price points and new sizes.
Speaker 1: Those started just one hundred and ninety nine dollars, So
Speaker 1: now we have this sort of range of prices and
Speaker 1: size options thirty two inch TV all the way up
Speaker 1: to a seventy five inch Omnique LED, so a full
Speaker 1: range of Amazon Built TV options for any customer in
Speaker 1: any home. And then I think lastly we expanded that
Speaker 1: the footprint of the Amazon Built TV business, so we
Speaker 1: added you know, we've been selling those in the US
Speaker 1: and Canada. We're now selling those in Mexico, the UK,
Speaker 1: and Germany as well, bringing those to those customer bases
Speaker 1: that have been anticipating this for some time. Why be
Speaker 1: in the Amazon built TV business at all? I know
Speaker 1: you've been there, i'd say at least a year now,
Speaker 1: and I'm just curious. You know, you certainly seem to
Speaker 1: have had many partners of existing original equipment manufacturers. Why
Speaker 1: could that not have just continued to have been the
Speaker 1: Amazon TV business? Why be there with your own brand
Speaker 1: building it yourself. That's a great question, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: really it's just to be an engine for invention. We
Speaker 1: want to you know, develop technology as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: We'd give it to partners as fast as we're in
Speaker 1: venting it. And there are a lot of examples of
Speaker 1: where we're accelerating our partner's ability to deliver new experiences.
Speaker 1: So I think if you look at, for example, we
Speaker 1: launched our first Barfield televisions. By that, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a TV you can just ask Alexa to do anything
Speaker 1: on from across the room, sort of imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: putting an echo right in the TV. That's a very
Speaker 1: complex problem, involves a lot of science and computer science
Speaker 1: to figure out how to noise, cancel, and beam form
Speaker 1: and actually build a far field television's a pretty complex
Speaker 1: engineering problem. Within a few months of when we launched
Speaker 1: our first farfield TV, Toshiba was already shipping their own
Speaker 1: high quality TVs. So and that's because we're inventing it
Speaker 1: and giving it to those partners as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of what you see us
Speaker 1: doing with the Amazon built TVs is delivering a great
Speaker 1: customer experience, accelerating our partner set as well right alongside that,
Speaker 1: and I could certainly see the appeal of an Alexa
Speaker 1: driven TV experience. And I'm curious what it means when
Speaker 1: you think about what Amazon brings to the table, all
Speaker 1: the different pieces of its business, the ring business. You know,
Speaker 1: you start to think of a TV as more than
Speaker 1: just a place for entertainment, but is the hub for
Speaker 1: controlling the whole smart home? Is that what this TV
Speaker 1: is about? Is or the future of this TV? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know, we've said we've had this term
Speaker 1: smart TV for so long, and really all that it
Speaker 1: ever got to for customers with sort of a TV
Speaker 1: that connects to the internet has a socio user interface,
Speaker 1: not really organizing your content for you, and that came
Speaker 1: to sort of set customers expectations for a smart TV.
Speaker 1: We're in the golden age of the smart home. We're
Speaker 1: surrounded by different devices that help us in different ways
Speaker 1: make life simpler around the home, and the TV's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to bring all of that together better for customers,
Speaker 1: not just on the content side. Our mission with Fire
Speaker 1: TV on the content side is to get content out
Speaker 1: of the apps, get it in front of customers. You
Speaker 1: don't have to think about diving in and out of
Speaker 1: which app has what for you. You're delighted by recommendations
Speaker 1: across all your sources, etc. Well, the same should be
Speaker 1: true for the smart home. Your TV as this big
Speaker 1: technology investment, it should be helpful throughout the day. For example,
Speaker 1: you should be able to see your calendar on it.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you get suggestions about new content, recommendations or
Speaker 1: even recipes from your TV. Also, it should beautiful for
Speaker 1: you throughout the day. So Omnique lads come with seventeen
Speaker 1: hundred pieces of gallery quality art. It's basically an art
Speaker 1: gallery in your home. So we think that's what actually
Speaker 1: smart looks like. It's a TV that's beautiful, it's useful,
Speaker 1: and it's pulling together the world of the smart home
Speaker 1: around your home for you. The art piece of it
Speaker 1: sound particularly interesting because I believe you guys have some
Speaker 1: functionality where you could actually sort of create your own
Speaker 1: art just by speaking to Alexa. That's right. I did
Speaker 1: sort of when we did this set of product announcements,
Speaker 1: and we did do a sneak peak of Generative AI
Speaker 1: functionality that we will be launching later this year for customers.
Speaker 1: So that the classic piece that I did there was
Speaker 1: showing how the northern lights could be generated over Big Ben.
Speaker 1: So it was as simple as saying, Alexa, create a
Speaker 1: painting of the northern lights over Big Ben. Then you
Speaker 1: could get this beautiful, high high quality render of that
Speaker 1: that looks photographic. You can change the style, say to
Speaker 1: something like van Go style or Pointillism or a graphical style.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to be really excited to launch
Speaker 1: something I think so useful for customers. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting discussion about generative AI and what it can
Speaker 1: do in a browser, say, but bringing it, I think
Speaker 1: into customers living rooms and letting them take control of
Speaker 1: that creative process is going to be really fun. That
Speaker 1: does sound really cool, But when we're talking about something
Speaker 1: that's a little more utilitarian in terms of this smart
Speaker 1: home functionality, you know, what does this future look like?
Speaker 1: Am I control? You know, I'm controlling the lights, I'm
Speaker 1: opening my garage? I mean is it? How ambitious are
Speaker 1: we thinking here? Yeah? You can do many of these
Speaker 1: things with your TV today. So if you ask fire TV,
Speaker 1: it could be a stick, it could be a new
Speaker 1: omnique lid to show you your smart home devices, or
Speaker 1: your smart home dashboard. Up it comes, and there are
Speaker 1: many ways that that's really useful for customers and some
Speaker 1: of the things you talked about blinds and lights and
Speaker 1: the other kinds of things that customers are bringing into
Speaker 1: their homes. All that's available, but it really gets useful
Speaker 1: when you think about things like cameras. So you know
Speaker 1: my ring cameras, they pop right up as soon as
Speaker 1: you ask for that dashboard. Or you know when someone
Speaker 1: rings my ring doorbell during a movie, it just pauses,
Speaker 1: the movie, brings up the ring doorbell feed and we
Speaker 1: talk to whoever's at the door. It's usually for the
Speaker 1: pizza delivery for family movie night. We have them leave
Speaker 1: the pizzas and pop upstairs and continue our movie. So
Speaker 1: I think what customers really want is all of that
Speaker 1: to come together simply and elegantly and not seem like
Speaker 1: it's a more complicated world. They want the smart home
Speaker 1: to be simple and easy to use, and we're glad
Speaker 1: to be doing that with Alexa and fire TV. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in just a moment with more with Daniel Rausch,
Speaker 1: VP of Entertainment Devices and Services at Amazon. And we're
Speaker 1: back with Daniel Rausch, who oversees the fire TV business
Speaker 1: and Amazon also the Luna cloud gaming service, which we
Speaker 1: will get to in just a minute. But I still
Speaker 1: want to ask a few more things about fire TV.
Speaker 1: I'm so interested in this notion of this smart home hub,
Speaker 1: but part of my skepticism doesn't the smartphone become the
Speaker 1: more logical place where this hub experience should be emanating from.
Speaker 1: Why do we see the TV? As I know this
Speaker 1: has been you know, I've been covering this business for
Speaker 1: a while and there's been this fantasy for decades about
Speaker 1: the TV, But I think that originated before the smartphone
Speaker 1: was there. So what am I missing? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: I think there's some important, important distinctions. The your phone
Speaker 1: is so useful, and we all, you know, we all
Speaker 1: rely on it so much. It's also your device, and
Speaker 1: it's often our most personal device. And customers really don't
Speaker 1: actually want a personal remote control for the home. You know,
Speaker 1: my family, I've got three kids and my wife and
Speaker 1: we all live together here. We all need access to
Speaker 1: our smart locks. We all want to be able to
Speaker 1: bring up the cameras, we all want to turn on
Speaker 1: and off the lights right. And there are so many
Speaker 1: homes for which customers are trying to coordinate all that
Speaker 1: through a person's phone with a account. It gets very complicated.
Speaker 1: Actually have to fish out your phone, unlock it, find
Speaker 1: the right app among all the different apps, find the
Speaker 1: right device within the app, app the device. And that's
Speaker 1: just to turn on a light bulb. So I think
Speaker 1: what customers love is the simplicity of voice. You know,
Speaker 1: Alexa's incredibly popular in the smart home. The deep integration
Speaker 1: of Alexa with br TV makes it possible to pick
Speaker 1: off your movie night routine, adjust the lights, and brings
Speaker 1: up your content and just gets everything going all at once.
Speaker 1: You know, I just mentioned things like the ring doorbell,
Speaker 1: deep integration, those things are elegant and simple. They're available
Speaker 1: to everyone in the house. You don't have to learn
Speaker 1: how to use any of it. So we see customers
Speaker 1: really using Alexa and fire TV to bring together a
Speaker 1: lot of that smartphone capability. And what about the Echo,
Speaker 1: because the Echo being the speaker device that Alexa is
Speaker 1: typically stored in in a world where we're filled with
Speaker 1: fire TVs, what do I need an Echo for if
Speaker 1: alexas in my because I would assume you don't need
Speaker 1: more than one device with Alexa in your home. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, Yeah, you I mean there are customers that
Speaker 1: will put an Alexa device into any given room so
Speaker 1: that they have access. And we do see that customers
Speaker 1: in the living room, if they have a far field TV,
Speaker 1: say they bought one of our new Omnique led TVs
Speaker 1: with Alexa built in and it has that our field
Speaker 1: capability where they can just say Alexa and Alexa is
Speaker 1: always ready to respond. We do see that that that
Speaker 1: will be the Alexa device for the living room at
Speaker 1: this point, because that's a great way to access Alexa.
Speaker 1: And they might put an Echo dot in there on
Speaker 1: their bedstand table. My kids have Echo dots in their
Speaker 1: room that's the device that they that they use there.
Speaker 1: So I think it's sort of a room by room question.
Speaker 1: Our job is to have enough selection for customers, so
Speaker 1: we want to make sure all that's available. Now, when
Speaker 1: you start talking about all these these speakers and TVs,
Speaker 1: I wonder about the privacy issue. Obviously that's important to
Speaker 1: some consumers. What protections did the fire TV device provide
Speaker 1: for those who are you know, very security conscious? Sure?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean at an Amazon, you know, everything
Speaker 1: we do has privacy and security built in from the core.
Speaker 1: That's from the moment we start to conceive of a product.
Speaker 1: And just like any of our Alexa you know, endpoints
Speaker 1: or devices, privacies built in foundationally. So there's a switch
Speaker 1: on the TVs for example, that electronically disconnects the microphones.
Speaker 1: It's a complete mute and you see with a little
Speaker 1: LED indicator that the microphones are off. There are all
Speaker 1: kinds of settings around, you know, your voice utterances and
Speaker 1: your data and privacy settings can be accessed in the
Speaker 1: fireTV menus so that you can toggle any of that
Speaker 1: on and off simply for customers. So we present, you know,
Speaker 1: the key things customers want is transparency and then control
Speaker 1: over how that data works, and all of that's available
Speaker 1: right in the fire TV menu. Let's get back to
Speaker 1: the core of the TV experience. In terms of entertainment,
Speaker 1: content discovery can be a nightmare. And frankly, I've encountered
Speaker 1: TVs where the UX isn't necessarily an improvement. So when
Speaker 1: you've got you know, thousands of different apps and channels,
Speaker 1: what is it about the fire TVUX that you think
Speaker 1: solves for this problem? The key thing the customers actually want,
Speaker 1: They really want two things. First, if they know what
Speaker 1: they want to watch, they want to be able to
Speaker 1: get to it simply, elegantly, and they're in right. I mean,
Speaker 1: entertainment is all about stepping back, relaxing, enjoying something, stepping
Speaker 1: out of the rest of your day, and so you know,
Speaker 1: putting that content right in front of customers, they don't
Speaker 1: have to think about where it is and how to
Speaker 1: find it, whether that's through the fire to VUX and
Speaker 1: things like are continue watching row you just dive right
Speaker 1: into it, or through voice where you just you don't
Speaker 1: have to think about where it is. You just want
Speaker 1: to watch, you know, the latest episode of Stranger Things Say,
Speaker 1: or you want to catch up where all watching succession
Speaker 1: right now with voice you say it, you're in. You
Speaker 1: don't have to think about the source. The second thing
Speaker 1: is to be delighted, you know, with discovery, and I
Speaker 1: think that's an even more complex problem for customers as
Speaker 1: streaming sources have gone up. There's so many choices and
Speaker 1: so having one central sort of recommendation, set of recommendations
Speaker 1: for customers is key the customers a lot of things
Speaker 1: like our next up for you row that's not pointing
Speaker 1: you to a particular application, that's pointing you to a
Speaker 1: show that we know you'll love based on your preferences,
Speaker 1: and pulling it all together. So I think getting content
Speaker 1: out of the apps really is what customers love most
Speaker 1: about the fire TV experience. It's not just some app
Speaker 1: tray like your phone. That's not the future of streaming.
Speaker 1: The future of streaming is, you know, understanding what you'll
Speaker 1: be delighted by and putting it in front of you.
Speaker 1: Let's switch gears to the Luna business, which you over oversee.
Speaker 1: Did you also oversee a cloud gaming service? That is
Speaker 1: how old now? Would you say? It's been in general
Speaker 1: availability for just over a year and we just expanded
Speaker 1: the reach of Luna to include the UK, Germany, and Canada,
Speaker 1: so we're expanding that footprint as well. So it's it's
Speaker 1: weeks old in those in those regions and just over
Speaker 1: a year in general availability in the US. And we've
Speaker 1: seen that this could be a tough business. Google had
Speaker 1: a similar service called Stadia that has since shuttered. I
Speaker 1: know a few months ago your game library lost a
Speaker 1: sizeable chunk of games. How are you finding this losing
Speaker 1: a business in in year one? Considering it seems like
Speaker 1: it can be a challenging space. Well, I think you know,
Speaker 1: first of all, we know that streaming is going to
Speaker 1: transform gaming to customers benefit the same way it has
Speaker 1: so many different media types. So if you just look
Speaker 1: at you know, look at your music experience now, or
Speaker 1: your video and TV experience now, I mean, streaming is
Speaker 1: transformative and so beneficial for customers, and we know that
Speaker 1: you know it is going to happen to gaming. Customers
Speaker 1: should not have to buy, you know, incredibly expensive hardware investments,
Speaker 1: you know, much more frequently, if you look at the
Speaker 1: console space, the expectations for customers, you have to upgrade
Speaker 1: your console, you know, every few years, just keep pace.
Speaker 1: All of that can be done in the cloud now,
Speaker 1: and so you know it's going to be a great
Speaker 1: benefit for customers when streaming takes over the landscape of gaming.
Speaker 1: And that's really what we're all about with Luna, is
Speaker 1: making making streaming gaming really affordable. I think you know
Speaker 1: you asked about about how how Luna is doing. I
Speaker 1: think the best sign for how it's doing is the
Speaker 1: expansion we just announced. As I mentioned, Luna is now
Speaker 1: available in Canada, the UK, and Germany. It's been available
Speaker 1: for over a year in the US in general availability,
Speaker 1: Customers are loving it and we're just excited to keep
Speaker 1: growing it. So has there been any sort of strategic
Speaker 1: changes in direction after one year or your current configuration
Speaker 1: is where you're you're going in the future with Luna.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've we consolidated a few subscriptions. So
Speaker 1: we started with a couple of things we had. For example,
Speaker 1: you could add on a retro games subscription. We've folded
Speaker 1: that into our baseline Luna Plus subscription. So we're trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of how customers think about different subscriptions
Speaker 1: to game libraries, and customers are loving Luna Plus. They're
Speaker 1: loving the experiences we're building with third parties. We have
Speaker 1: an Ubisoft Plus game library on there as well, and
Speaker 1: a third party offering from Jackbox Games. That's that's one
Speaker 1: thing that's going well with just figuring out the curation
Speaker 1: of games in the library, and you've seen us tweak
Speaker 1: that a little bit, I would say. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: we're making a set of games free every month the
Speaker 1: prime customers and customers are really loving that. So I
Speaker 1: think that's another thing we've learned is that, you know,
Speaker 1: customers want to be able to experiment, validate. That's you know,
Speaker 1: this streaming on Luna works great, and then they'll invest
Speaker 1: maybe in a subscription or adding a game controller. A
Speaker 1: prime customer can you know you have a fire team
Speaker 1: in your living room. A prime customer can lean back
Speaker 1: and be playing within seconds. They can use their phone
Speaker 1: as their controller to try out Luna. And there are
Speaker 1: great titles in there, you know, We've got for example,
Speaker 1: Rise and Chase. Turbo is available here in a adventure Pals,
Speaker 1: Yakaza Kawami too. There's some great game titles available in
Speaker 1: April and then those rotate every month, So I think
Speaker 1: I think that's the other thing we're learning is just
Speaker 1: how much Prime customers benefit from Luna. One last question,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of big companies these days, particularly in
Speaker 1: the tech category, Amazon has cut a significant number of
Speaker 1: jobs recently, and so I'm wondering, how does that affect
Speaker 1: you in terms of the fire TV business the Luna business.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing the same level of commitment when you
Speaker 1: started these businesses or is it becoming a little harder
Speaker 1: Perhaps resources could be more constrained, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's it's tough anytime we have to
Speaker 1: say good hide to anyone. Each one of those decisions
Speaker 1: is really thoughtfully done, and you know you've seen it
Speaker 1: across the tech landscape. But I would offer that you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much investment going on in our devices business overall,
Speaker 1: we've recalibrated several investments at which I think is the
Speaker 1: nature of your question, that is the landscape right in
Speaker 1: how in terms of the macro economy, you know, every
Speaker 1: part of every business is going through that. But the
Speaker 1: business is strong and we continue to invest in fire TV,
Speaker 1: we continue to invest in Luna. You know, those are
Speaker 1: both businesses we're talking today because we're expanding. So I
Speaker 1: think the future is really great. Good to hear we'll
Speaker 1: have to check in with you this time next year.
Speaker 1: Get into their progress report. Thank you Daniel for taking
Speaker 1: your time out today. Thanks so much, Andrew. This has
Speaker 1: been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week
Speaker 1: for another helping of scintillating conversation with media movers and shakers,
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