How CanYou Play Games On Amazon’s Kindle Reader?

The Amazon Kindle reader has been a huge success for Amazon since it was first released in November of 2007. The upgrade Kindle 2.0, released in February 2009 was a huge influence in the rapid growth and development of the e-book reader market and the new Kindle 3 reader, unveiled at the end of July 2010, has been selling faster than ever.

According to Amazon, the new Kindle 3 has been selling faster than any previous Kindle did during the equivalent post launch period. It’s a long way removed from the widely forecast demise of the Kindle that a lot of industry analysts anticipated in the wake of the Apple iPad’s launch.

In a way, it’s a compliment to the Kindle that, up until now at least, its only credible competition comes in the form of a versatile tablet computer which costs more than three times the price of the Kindle. If Amazon to increase the Kindle price by a factor of three, it seems fair to assume that some additional features could probably be added.

However, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. The Kindle has set its stall out as a specialist e-book reader. The iPad is a versatile device. They are two totally different kinds of gadget aimed at different market sectors. A side by side technical comparison is likely to be a fruitless endeavour.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that there are now games being released for the Kindle. Apple’s iPad is clearly far and away the better device for playing games on – the Kindle’s e-ink technology display, whilst ideal for an e-book reader, is not suited for any application which requires a rapid screen refresh rate.

So it should be no surprise that the types of games being released for the Kindle are mainly word puzzles and number games. Currently, the most popular Kindle game is the timeless classic Scrabble. Other options include Sudoku, crosswords and general word puzzles. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about Halo or Grand Theft Auto here – but, without wanting stereotyping too much, it probably makes sense that someone who reads a lot might also enjoy solving word puzzles and maybe playing Sudoku.

Kindle Scrabble is currently available for $ 4.99 and is the top selling Kindle game at this time. Most games available seem to range from $ 0.99 to $ 4.99. We are even beginning to see some free games becoming available, a trend which – if Kindle games follow the same pattern as Kindle Books – will in all probability increase in future.