Amazon has announced that HBO Go is now available for the Amazon Fire TV, and support for the Fire TV Stick is coming in the spring.
That means HBO subscribers can stream movies and TV shows from the cable network, including recent hits such as Game of Thrones. Amazon Prime subscribers can already access older shows such as The Wire, Rome, and The Sopranos.
Amazon normally sells the Fire TV for $99, but it’s on sale for $79 through December 28th.
HBO Go has been available for other smart TV devices including Roku products, the Apple TV, and Google’s Chromecast for a while. But it was a notable absence in the Fire TV lineup of online video apps.
Now the Fire TV can support most major US online video services including Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Showtime, HBO, PBS, ESPN, MLB, and obviously Amazon Instant Video.
For folks who bought a Fire TV because they aren’t cable TV subscribers, the HBO Go app isn’t much use… yet. But HBO is planning to launch its own, cable-free streaming video service in 2015 that will let people pay to stream content even if they don’t pay for live TV. There’s no word on how much that service will cost though.
Update: The Wall Street Journal notes that Comcast and Charter cable subscribers will not be able to use the HBO Go app for the Fire TV.
comcast wouldn’t work with roku either, as far as I know the android, ios, and xbox apps are the only ones that can be used with comcast.
I don’t see myself paying for this if it is DRM or too expensive. I’ll just stick to torrents. That is quite the scumbag move by Charter and Comcast. I guess they don’t want to allow Time Warner which owns HBO to make any money they don’t get a cut of.
I was able to sideload it onto my FireTV Stick and it works fine (although the menus are a bit sluggish.) The actual streaming works great. Just read up on it at XDA. You have to “purchase” the free app from Amazon and then sideload it. Then follow the in-app directions to activate it through your HBO account.
With HBO, Slingplayer and XBMC now all working via the remote and other videos castable via Allcast, the Stick has basically supplanted my Chromecast. There are a few sideloaded apps that still require using my phone as a mousepad (Wukong app), but for the most part I can watch what I want using the remote, which I find easier than using my phone+Chromecast. Although both are great advances for cordcutters.
You can’t get the stick, it’s out until mid January. The box which costs double is available. Waiting for that stick