According to a report back in August, it was announced that Amazon had acquired Twitch. Given that the acquisition was priced at $970 million, which makes it a pretty big deal, naturally there would be some time needed in order to clear it. Well it looks like the deal has not been met with any objections because a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (via Joystiq) has confirmed that the deal has been officially completed.
What this means is that Twitch is now officially owned by Amazon. Now while $970 million does seem like a lot of money, it should be noted in the past that Twitch has managed to draw more viewers compared to channels like HLN, CNN, E!, MSNBC, TruTV, and MTV during peak hours, which means that Amazon probably got themselves a pretty good deal.
It is unclear as to what Amazon’s long-term plans are for Twitch, although the initial announcement stated that Amazon will be letting Twitch keep its brand, employees, and its offices, so for now it looks like Twitch will continue running the way it is, and with Amazon’s backing and checkbook, perhaps we can look forward to new and improved features in the future.
The initial rumors had suggested that Google would be the one to acquire Twitch, which would make sense as Twitch could be the video game streaming version of YouTube, also owned by Google. However later reports suggested that antitrust concerns forced Google to back out, although Google has yet to confirm those reports.