Twitch and Amazon have sidelined Twitch Turbo for the sake of Twitch Prime, a new premium streaming service, the companies announced today. The service is an extension of Amazon Prime and includes tons of gaming goodies, such as free games, DLC and new viewing options.
The service is included at no extra cost to Amazon Prime members, and will allow Twitch users to view any stream ad-free. Users can also subscribe to a channel of their choice for free every 30 days.
This is welcome news to streamers because they still get paid as if Twitch Prime members were giving them real cash – no strings attached.
Right now Twitch Prime subscribers have early access to the new Hearthstone hero, Tyrande Whisperwind, and the Twitch-focused new indie game, Streamline. Other perks include custom chat icons, and discounts to specific titles on the Amazon store.
For something that doesn’t cost any extra, the service is actually pretty great. Linking the accounts is incredibly painless and the benefits are instant.
Twitch Turbo will still exist, but by the sounds of it the company looks to be phasing it out in favour of Twitch Prime.
“First, some reassurance: we’re not taking Turbo away from anyone,” the company wrote in a blog post. “In regions where Twitch Prime is available (US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Spain), we will no longer take new Turbo subscriptions, and instead will roll the following benefits into Twitch Prime: ad-free viewing across Twitch, exclusive emotes (the ones you get with Turbo, plus some new ones), an exclusive chat badge, and 60 days of video storage for past broadcasts.”
Twitch Prime is effective immediately in Canada, US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and you can check out the full breakdown of what to expect here.
Update: Article updated to add clarification that Twitch Turbo is not leaving completely.
