Amazon gearing up for games on next generation Kindle

Love or hate Apple, it's hard to deny that the company makes some impressive products that are widely popular with consumers the world over. The iPod dominates the music player market, the iPhone is among the most popular smartphones around, and the new iPad is doing very well in the market.

One of the big appeals of the iPad is that the device can do all sorts of things from surfing the web, to reading books, to playing games all with very impressive performance. The usability and wide feature set of the iPad is putting lots of pressure on one dimensional devices like the Amazon Kindle.

Amazon isn't taking this lying down though and is hiring lots of new folks to help it fight Apple on even ground. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in all the hiring according to the New York Times is that Amazon is reportedly in meetings with publishers to talk about new games that it will bring to a future version of the Kindle. Sadly, there is no clear indication on how far out the new version will be. If Amazon wants to fight Apple on the gaming front, the Kindle will need more than a few word games and a black and white screen.