Will Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s $970mm Purchase Boost Stock Price?

In May, news about Twitch first hit the public. Back then, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was going after the video game streaming company and was going to bid more than $1 billion. Three months later, that deal fell through. Now, Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has just revealed that it will be purchasing the video game company for roughly $970 million.

According to people familiar with the matter, Google was unable to sign the deal because it was worried about the possible anti trust issues that may have come with the acquisition. The search engine company already owns YouTube, the most-visited content streaming site in the world. YouTube is considered a rival against Twitch, because both companies stream and broadcast live or on demand video game sessions. One person familiar with the matter said that due to these issues, Google and Twitch could not reach an agreement on the size of a possible breakup fee in case an agreement could not be reached.

Representatives from Google or Twitch were not immediately available for comment. A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to an email request for a comment.

The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, stated in a press release that Twitch has created a platform that brings together tens of millions of users who watch billions of minutes of games each month. These video games include The International, gaming conferences such as E3, and breaking the world record for Mario. Interestingly enough, Twitch was founded only three years ago. In the press release, Amazon likened itself to some key qualities of Twitch, stating that they both obsess over their customers and encourage thinking outside of the box. Amazon stated that they look forward to working with Twitch and learning from them, as well as helping Twitch move quicker to create new services and products for the gaming community.

During the discussions, neither Google nor Twitch publically announced that is was in talks for a possible acquisition deal. However, multiple publications confirmed that the two companies essentially finalized the deal last month. Reports today suggest that those rumors were far off target.

Amazon seeks to add acquisitions to a growing media content empire. The company has already established with multiple online television shows and Fire TV, a set-top box that streams content, which was released in April.

Amazon usually does not make large payments for acquisitions, so the deal with Twitch would be the second largest deal that it has signed in its 20 years of existence. The online retailer spent $1.2 billion in 2009 for Zappos.com, an online shoe website, as well as $775 million two years ago for Kiva Systems, a robotics company.

When Google let Twitch go without making a deal earlier this year, it was another loss of a high profile acquisition. Twitch currently has roughly 50 million viewers per month. Google’s other losses include WhatsApp, a mobile messaging company that Google pursued before Facebook jumped in and purchased for $19 billion in February. Early this year in July, Google supposedly was looking into buying Spotify, a music streaming service for around $5 billion, before the price caused Google to back out at the last minute.