Amazon buys twitch

Twitch has confirmed that it will be purchased by Amazon. The online retailer made an agreement with Twitch's shareholders to purchase all remaining shares "for approximately $970 million in cash, as adjusted for the assumption of options and other items".

"Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming," Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said in a prepared statement. "Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world."

The acquisition is planned to close by the end of 2014.

The popular video streaming platform allows players to broadcast themselves and their gameplay over the internet. The company has seen massive success over the past few years, with Sony and Microsoft opting to integrate Twitch streaming and viewing functionality natively into the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Twitch was founded in 2011 as a gaming-centric offshoot of video streaming site Justin.tv. It attracted more than 45 million unique monthly viewers on average in 2013, with 58 percent of those viewers spending more than 20 hours per week on the service.

The streaming site eventually took the full focus of its parent company, which closed Justin.tv after seven years of operation earlier this month. The Wall Street Journal reports that Twitch had raised $20 million from investors up to this point, including Take-Two.

Heard this in the radio this morning, I have still to look into twitch properly tbh.