Amazon outs GameCircle, it’s the Game Center for Kindle Fire games

Amazon is keen on taking its Kindle Fire tablet beyond reading e-stuff, listening to music and watching movies and has today announced GameCircle, a brand new application programming interface (API) for developers, with social gaming features akin to Apple’s Game Center on iOS devices (and soon Mountain Lion Macs). It’s got the basics nailed, the stuff like leaderboards and

 achievements. Amazon is hoping developers will quickly pick it up and enrich their Kindle Fire games and who knows, it may come in handy if the company decides upon releasing a phone of its own…

Amazon bills GameCircle as “a new set of services designed to make it easier for developers to create more engaging gaming experiences and to grow their gaming business on Kindle Fire”.

Social gaming features supported in the initial release include achievements, leaderboards and sync functionality, all already beta tested in games like Temple Run, Doodle Jump, Triple Town and other popular titles.