Here’s another bit to add to the Amazon rumor mill. The rumored set-top box that the online retail giant is said to be working on might be ready for commercial launch as early as April, of course according to sources who are always close to the matter.

After a short period of quiet, Amazon hit the news again, this time not with an Amazon-branded smartphone, though, of course, we also have one about that. This time, however, the company is rumored to be working on a set-top box that is increasingly sounding like everything you can ever wish for in a set-top box. Or an HDMI dongle, depending on who you ask.

Rumors of the so-called Amazon TV device started around February. In a way, it could be seen as a natural extension of Amazon’s digital content offering, but then again an Amazon smartphone also felt natural and logical but we still don’t have that yet. Next, Amazon was rumored to be working with various video streaming services, like Hulu Plus and Netflix, but also on its own music streaming option, which, naturally, is expected to also be present in this set-top box. And finally, a photo of an Amazon-branded game controller appeared, as well as rumors that the set-top box might not be so boxy at all, resembling a Chromecast dongle more than a Roku. This leaves images of the somewhat ill-fated GameStick in our heads. This possibility of a gaming-enabled device is given a bit of credence with the recent public release of Amazon’s game-centric AppStream cloud service. Oh, and yes, rumor has it that it will be running Android, likely a variant of its Kindle FireOS.

The idea of what the Amazon set-top box slash dongle cum gamepad may be is starting to coagulate in our minds, but we might not have to keep on imagining for long. According to Wall Street Journal’s sources, the device will be ready by April, though no exact or even ballpark date was given, of course. Amazon might also be offering some incentives to make purchasing the device more tempting, as if an actual Amazon device that isn’t just a rumor anymore wasn’t already tempting enough.

VIA: SlashGear

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