Amazon unveiled an international version of its Fire TV stick Tuesday that is supposed to help with the adoption of its Prime Video service around the world. Fire TV Basic Edition, as the product is officially called, comes without access to the company’s Alexa voice assistant. Not having to localize Alexa for all those markets helps the company to speed up Prime Video’s international roll-out.
Amazon is selling the new version for $50 on Amazon.com, and shipping it to over 100 countries. The company is also selling it through its local Amazon websites in Canada, France, Italy and Spain, and will do the same in Mexico and Brazil soon. However, the product can’t be ordered from within the United States.
The Fire TV Basic Edition is essentially the same as Amazon’s existing Fire TV Stick, capable of playing HD video at up to 60 fps and packing some 8GB of storage space for apps. The key difference is that the Basic Edition ships with a remote control without microphone. Also, the domestic version of the Fire TV stick costs $10 less.
Amazon launched Prime Video as a global video subscription service about a year ago. The expansion brought Prime Video as a standalone video subscription service to over 200 countries and territories, and followed a similar move by Netflix at the beginning of last year. Both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video remain unavailable in China.
