Amazon's long rumored set-top streaming device may not be a set-top device at all. The TV hardware, rumored to launch in April, may end up looking like a Chromecast, and it may try to take on Google with a gaming feature the Chromecast doesn't have.

The rumors have been flying fast and loose in the weeks before April, when according to the Wall Street Journal's anonymous sources, Amazon.com will launch its video-streaming device on its website, and through retailers like Best Buy and Staples, early in the month.

The streaming device, which was long thought to come in the form of an Apple TV-like set-top box, will likely carry a variety of apps at launch to compete with Roku, Apple, and Google's Chromecast, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and, of course, Amazon's own streaming and on demand services.

Meanwhile, Tech Crunch's sources sparked off a rumor that the Amazon device will come in the TV dongle form factor -- the same one used by Chromecast and recently by Roku's new device.

In the same report, one of the sources said that it "should have support for streaming full PC game titles, and as such might be able to compete with consoles including the Xbox and Playstation, instead of just Android-powered living room game devices."

The underlying precedent is already set by Amazon, which sells digital PC and Mac gaming titles for direct download, as well as offering an Android cloud game service included in Prime. Tech Crunch speculates that instead of downloading games onto a local storage drive, the Amazon TV device would stream games' content and save gamers' progress in the cloud -- not unlike OnLive or a better than Android equivalent of Amazon's own GameCircle.

Yet another leak by tech blogger Dave Zatz of a possible prototype wireless game controller lends more credence to the idea that Amazon will include gaming of some type in its device, and speculation is that the device will also allow connectivity with Kindle tablets, perhaps as a game controller as well. But all of that in a USB thumbstick drive-sized dongle, capable of streaming what Tech Crunch's sources called "top-tier games" at 30 frames per second, sounds a little too good to be true.

On top of all of these rumors, there remains the prediction that Amazon will ad a Spotify-style music streaming service to its Prime membership service -- something which, if available exclusively in home theaters via Amazon's device, would be yet another addition to Amazon's competitive TV package.

The price remains unknown, but the device will probably need to cost less than $99, and more likely closer to Roku's $50 or Chromecast's $35 retail level. Considering Amazon just increased the price of its Prime subscription by $20 to $99 per year, it would be a smart move to make a new Amazon streaming device included with Prime. But that's another rumor for another time.