Business of Esports Minute #044: Amazon Singapore, Microsoft Army, Tencent TiMi

A week of news covering the intersection of business and gaming / esports, all in about one minute – everything you need to know from the “profit of esports” himself. 044 – April 11, 2021 In this week’s Business of Esports Minute: Amazon Singapore, Microsoft Army, and Tencent Timi. From the keyboard to the boardroom, this is the Business of Esports Minute! Every single week, I, Paul Dawalibi, the prophet of esports, will be bringing you my hottest takes from the week, basically, everything you need to know about the business of esports all in about one minute. Let’s go. Amazon Singapore recently announced it was officially launching a dedicated gaming store. In conjunction with the launch, the Gaming Store will offer several deals on exclusive titles and games over the coming weeks. Amazon is obviously testing a dedicated gaming storefront in a smaller market first. These dedicated storefronts make a lot of sense because they are good for both discovery and shopper education. It also gives Amazon more opportunity to sell specific sponsored product slots. I just don’t fully understand why they don’t make a dedicated gaming storefront part of Twitch instead, where the combination of content and commerce would be very powerful. They seem very reluctant to make Twitch their gaming brand and I think it’s a mistake. Microsoft recently won a contract for almost $22 billion to supply U.S. Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets. The deal was announced by both organizations at the end of March. Ever since our podcast episode with General Muth, I have been massively excited about the potential for gaming to transform the battlefield. Using AR and gaming technologies to give troops an advantage (and potentially save their lives) sounds like a huge win for both Microsoft and the Army here. I would not be surprised to see even bigger deals being made for deeper gaming integration into every component of modern warfare. Finally, it was reported that Tencent’s TiMi Studios