Amazon 
is making its long-awaited move into the living room, and it’s bringing games along for the ride.
On Tuesday, the retailer announced Amazon Fire TV, a thin, set-top box designed to go toe-to-toe with Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku’s many set-top boxes. Like its competitors, the $99 box streams movies, music and television shows and begins shipping immediately.
Given Motorola’s notable presence
in the cell phone world, the bulk of today’s coverage on the $12.5 billion deal has focused on what will happen with the Android operating system (quick answer: Not much- HTC, Samsung and other phones will still be supported). But the real interesting twist on this takeover could be its impact on Google TV.
The service, which lets users access the Web on their TV, hasn’t had a particularly strong launch. To be blunt, it has stumbled more than a baby taking its first steps. (In the first quarter of this year, there were more returns of Logitech’s Google TV box than there were sales.)
There are roughly 160 million set-top boxes in 
homes around the U.S. – that’s more than 80 percent of the country’s domiciles. And every last one of them is a vampire.
Not the Bela Lugosi or Robert Pattinson kind, of course – but the kind that suck power from your walls and money from your wallet.
Google TV just can’t catch a break – and the 
repercussions could reach beyond the search giant.
The Web-meets-TV set-top box was meant to make it easy for users to find whatever video they were looking for on their television sets—both on the air and online. But the number of content providers who are blocking access from Google TV has grown steadily since the service’s launch. Hulu was first, but it wasn’t long before the networks were also preventing the service from streaming their video content.
Could the set-top box kill 
cable?
It’s hard to turn the corner these days without someone thrusting a new gadget for your television at you. Apple and Google are among the more familiar names exploring the space, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The arena also includes aspirants such as Roku, Boxee, Seagate, Asus and Western Digital. And the three major vidgame consoles are already delivering content.
Chris Morris: Journalist 