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Hey Amazon Prime members, If you thought free, 2-day shipping was the coolest perk of the program, allow HBO to blow your freaking minds.
Amazon just announced that they struck a major content deal with HBO, making Amazon Prime Instant Video the only place you can watch HBO original series without an HBO subscription. Yes, that’s right, starting May 21st, Amazon Prime members will have access to unlimited streaming episodes of most HBO original series, including The Sopranos, The Wire, Eastbown & Down, and Flight of the Conchords, select seasons of Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, Girls, The Newsroom and Veep, all without having to shell out $15.99 a month for a cable package with HBO.
Do you hear that? That’s the sound of a million Time Warner Cable accounts suddenly being cancelled. Though Game of Thrones and True Detective fans may want to hang on to their HBO subscriptions; those shows are not included in this deal.
So what does this mean for you? For $100 a year, you can have all the benefits of Amazon Prime (including Free 2-day shipping, access to free streaming video content), now with the added bonus of HBO programming. This is the first time that HBO has ever gone cable-free, and it seems to be a win-win situation for everyone.
Everyone but Netflix, that is. Netflix is still the King of Content when it comes to exclusive streaming series, with critically-acclaimed, award-winning hits like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, they’re sitting pretty as the King of Streaming Platforms, leaving its competitors in the dust. (Does anyone actually have a Hulu Plus subscription on purpose?)
But with this move, Netflix is getting a pretty big “FU” from the company whose business model they’re trying to follow, HBO. Amazon is gunning for Netflix pretty hard; sure, Netflix is the more attractive option as of right now, but with this new deal, you can binge watch 10 episodes of Deadwood and order a new toaster on the same website. Netflix can’t compete with that.
The streaming content wars are heating up. Your move, Netflix.
[via Gizmodo]
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Hulu Plus has Community (RIP?) and Parks & Rec, therefore Hulu Plus wins. Then again, I’m not even sure whose Hulu account I’m logged into…