Forward-looking: In theory game streaming would bring access to modern game titles to almost everyone and would remove the need for an expensive gaming computer or console. However, it is heavily dependent on internet connection quality. Amazon is arguably one of the best positioned companies to tackle these challenges though.
One of the barriers to modern gaming is the access to high performance hardware. If you want to play today's hottest games, you need a gaming computer or console. Now it looks like Amazon wants to join the leagues of those challenging that notion by launching their very own game streaming service, according to sources from The Information.
Instead of buying a game and playing it on your own hardware, the service would likely integrate with a Fire TV to bring the game to you. The game files would be stored on Amazon's servers and rendering would also take place on Amazon's data center hardware. You would send the inputs from your controller and the service would stream back the resulting gameplay.
Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Sony have already announced plans for similar platforms but they haven't gained much traction so far as the gameplay experience is entirely dependent on your internet connection. Amazon is the undisputed king of cloud computing and certainly has the infrastructure and data centers to support it.
Amazon has already experimented with hybrid platforms where some elements are rendered locally and others are rendered remotely. The Verge also dug up some interesting job postings on Amazon's careers page. This includes two engineers for "Cloud Games" and another for "Lead Cross Platform Game Engineer." The latter is perhaps the most telling since the job description describes the role as including working "to shape the foundation of an unannounced AAA games business." Another posting is for an AI engineer who will develop a "never before seen kind of game" with the help of cloud experts.