Playing Games On The Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle reader has been a tremendous success for Amazon since it was originally launched in November of 2007. The enhanced Kindle 2.0, released in February 2009 was a major factor in the rapid growth and development of the e-book reader market and the latest third generation Kindle reader, unveiled at the end of July 2010, has been selling like hot cakes.

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 some ways, it’s a backhanded compliment to the Kindle that, at least up until now, its only genuine competition comes in the shape of a versatile tablet computer which sells for over three times the price of the Kindle. It seems reasonable to assume that were Amazon to treble the Kindle price, that some additional features could possibly be added.

However, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. The Kindle is clearly intended to be a specialist e-book reader. The iPad is a multi-functional device. They are two totally different kinds of gadget aimed at different market sectors. Comparing the two devices point by point seems unlikely to yield any meaningful result.

Notwithstanding that, it’s interesting to note that Kindle games are starting to appear on the market. Obviously the iPad is the clear winner when it comes to playing games – the Kindle’s screen, whilst ideal as an e-book reader, is not suitable for anything which requires a fast refresh rate.

So it should come as no great surprise that the types of games appearing for the Kindle are mainly numbers games and word puzzles. Currently, the most popular Kindle game is the timeless classic Scrabble. Crosswords, Sudoku and a variety of word puzzle games are also available. 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.

Scrabble for the Kindle is currently selling 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 can even see some free games appearing, a trend which – if Kindle games follow the same pattern as Kindle books – will most likely grow in the near future.