Amazon has opened the door for big leaps in functionality for its video devices for consumers: it has announced full support for publishing HTML5 apps to Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick as part of its existing HTML5 Web app publishing toolset. 

Through the Amazon Appstore on Fire TV devices, developers can now deploy Web apps and games to a whole new audience. 

The move means that Web developers will be able to publish HTML5-powered apps for the living room screen. And, In addition, developers with Web apps already published to Fire tablets and Fire phone will be able to release them on the Fire TV family of devices using the same workflow they are already using. 

To help support Web apps on Fire TV devices, Amazon has made additions to the Amazon WebView, which powers Web apps on its platform, to give developers access to a range of features. 

“The Amazon WebView supports everything you have come to expect from the mobile version of Chromium,” said Amazon’s Jesse Freeman, a “developer evangelist” for the company. “This includes WebGL, GPU optimized CSS3 Transition and fast JavaScript code execution. Web developers can now sell their Web apps at a premium price, use IAP (via our JavaScript API), and have their app distributed right alongside native Android (News – Alert) apps and games.”

WebView includes support for the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick remotes; support for analog input from the Amazon Fire TV Game Controller and other gamepads; access to an in-app purchase (IAP) API via JavaScript; and a starter template app optimized for the “10-foot experience” for creating Fire TV HTML5 media apps.

“We are excited to see what developers come up with to help push HTML5 forward onto the big screen,” Freeman said. “While traditional media apps make sense on the Fire TV, we are also looking forward to seeing HTML5 games and media apps evolve on this new platform. With support for WebGL, Gamepad API and accelerated canvas, high quality web games can now run on the TV. This opens up an entirely new world to HTML5 game developers hoping to build console quality games with the tools and frameworks they currently use to reach millions of web and mobile web gamers every day.