At TwitchCon 2016, Twitch and Amazon announced a new version of Twitch's premium membership that integrates both services. This new service, called Twitch Prime, comes with a number of benefits. In its blog post announcing Twitch Prime, Twitch claims it wants to create something that will combine "the best parts of Twitch and the best parts of Amazon".

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This is the largest in a series of big redesigns Twitch has made of late. The live-streaming company has introduced a number of social media-like features to increase the sense of community. It's also added the ability to upload videos not directly streamed from one's Twitch channel. At the same time as Twitch Prime was announced, each channel was redesigned to incorporate both the channel stream and the streamer's profile rather than have them on two separate pages.

Twitch Prime might just be Twitch's most ambitious change yet, as it will deliver a number of benefits to the Twitch community while simultaneously offering a chance to combine Amazon and Twitch together. Twitch Prime is available now to all users in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

Here's what you'll get if you upgrade to Twitch Prime, and what will happen to the rest of Twitch's basic services moving forward.

Amazon Prime = Twitch Prime

It's taken a while for the acquisition of Twitch by Amazon to bear fruit, but it's now finally making an impact. Twitch Prime integrates the features of both Amazon Prime and Twitch Turbo, and is only available to those with an Amazon Prime subscription.

The many perks that come with an Amazon Prime subscription might be enough to convince you to upgrade your account. With Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; unlimited streaming through Prime Video and Prime Music; and a number of other Prime benefits you might not even be aware of. It could be argued that Prime is not worth the money, but those who go into it looking only for the Twitch Prime benefits might get more than they bargained for.

If you are on the fence about whether or not you want an Amazon Prime account, you can try Amazon Prime for free for 30 days. If you do decide to subscribe, it's important to choose the right Amazon Prime subscription.

Twitch Prime Benefits

Twitch Prime includes a number of extra benefits, in addition to the usual premium perks of no ads and special chat emojis. The perk with the most cost-saving potential is probably the free channel subscription over 30 days. If you only subscribe to a handful of channels, then this will save you a few dollars.

While certain channels on Twitch don't focus on games -- there's a large community of artists on Twitch, and a Social Eating category, to cite two examples -- the vast majority of the site IS designed around gaming. As such, several of the rewards that come with Twitch Prime are directly related to gaming.

At the time the service was announced, Twitch offered a free Hearthstone hero for Prime subscribers, a skin for a god in SMITE, and the indie game Streamline. Twitch and Amazon both promise that subscribers will be offered a number of future in-game perks, characters, skins, etc, as well as free games.

Twitch Prime Free Trial

In addition, subscribers can get discounts on new games, including some vaunted collector's editions, and you get the game on the day it's released -- though this only applies to physical copies of the games. If you pre-order a game via your Twitch Prime/Amazon Prime account, you are guaranteed to pay the lowest price offered by Amazon at the time of the game's release.

What About Twitch Turbo?

Twitch veterans will likely be familiar with Twitch Turbo. For those who are not, it's Twitch's premium offering. People with Turbo subscriptions an watch without ads, gain access to additional chat emojis, and have a badge in chat. However, for a number of Twitch users, Turbo is no longer going to be an option.

Twitch stated on its blog that it will not be eliminating existing Turbo subscriptions, and that those who already have them may keep them for as long as they wish. However, the company is actively encouraging Turbo subscribers to switch to Twitch Prime. Those that do will get all of the same benefits of Twitch Turbo along with all of the aforementioned Prime benefits. Hopefully, however, Twitch will not force the issue.

Twitch Prime Turbo No More

So, if you do have a Twitch Turbo account and don't want to subscribe to Amazon Prime, then you're in luck! Also, Turbo will be kept alive in the countries where Prime is not currently available.

How to Upgrade

If you do choose to upgrade to Twitch Prime, Amazon has made it easy for you to switch. Twitch users who have Amazon Prime can integrate it into their Twitch account at no extra cost by visiting twitchprime.com. This will redirect them to an Amazon login page that automatically enables their Twitch Prime benefits. Those who don't have Amazon Prime can sign up for it and automatically have Twitch Prime enabled.

The best part about this update is that it changes nothing about the core features of Twitch, which has always been free to use. One can still stream video, watch other streams, and subscribe to Twitch channels with an ordinary account at no extra cost.

Have you upgraded to Twitch Prime? Do you have any plans to upgrade to Twitch Prime in the future? What do you think of the new Twitch Prime features? Please let us know in the comments below!