Amazon.com is serious about this online video stuff. The e-tailing giant has signed a number of deals with Hollywood studios and last month announced a multi-year deal to purchase streaming movies from Epix, a cable network with partners Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures.
The deal with Epix will make roughly 3,000 more movies available through Amazon's Prime Instant Video, giving further notice that it intends to give rival Netflix a run for its money. Epix and Netflix previously had an exclusive deal, but Amazon moved in when the deal lapsed.
Amazon has been looking to push into video streaming as demand for physical DVDs wane. The company has linked membership to its Prime annual subscription giving members access to streaming content at no additional cost. Consumers who are not Prime members and who purchase a Kindle Fire tablet receive a free one-month trial.
"We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the Prime Instant Video library for our customers. We have now more than doubled this selection of movies and TV episodes to over 25,000 titles in just under a year," said Bill Carr, vice president of video and music at Amazon, in a statement last month. "We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers such popular Epix titles, many of which were just recently in theaters. We can tell from the data that our customers love watching movies on Prime Instant Video. We think customers will really enjoy watching new titles like The Avengers, Iron Man 2 and The Hunger Games on their Kindle Fire, PlayStation 3, Xbox, iPad or any of the other of the Amazon Instant Video compatible devices."
While the Epix deal gives Amazon some added impetus, a Reuters piece points out that Netflix, with 25 million streaming video subscribers, still has roughly twice as many titles as its rival.