NEW YORK - Ama­zon is launch­ing a sub­scrip­tion ser­vice for chil­dren's games, videos and books aimed at get­ting more kids to use its Kin­dle Fire tablet de­vices. Ama­zon.com Inc an­nounced yes­ter­day that the Kin­dle Free­Time Un­lim­it­ed ser­vice will be avail­able in the next few weeks as part of an au­to­mat­ic soft­ware up­date.

Ama­zon said sub­scribers will have ac­cess to "thou­sands" of pieces of con­tent, though the com­pa­ny did not give a spe­cif­ic num­ber. Kids will be able to watch, play and read any of the con­tent avail­able to them as many times as they want. Par­ents can set time lim­its, how­ev­er.

The ser­vice, aimed at kids aged 3 to 8, will cost US$4.99 per month for one child. It'll cost US$2.99 per child for mem­bers of Ama­zon Prime, the com­pa­ny's pre­mi­um ship­ping ser­vice. Ama­zon Prime costs US$79 per year for free ship­ping of mer­chan­dise pur­chased in the com­pa­ny's on­line store.

Fam­i­ly plans for up to six kids will cost US$9.99 per month and US$6.99 for Prime mem­bers. The Kin­dle al­ready al­lows for parental con­trols through its Free­Time ser­vice. Par­ents can set up pro­files for up to six chil­dren and add time lim­its to con­trol how long kids can spend read­ing, watch­ing videos or us­ing the Kin­dle al­to­geth­er.

With the con­tent sub­scrip­tion ser­vice, kids can browse age-ap­pro­pri­ate videos, games and books and pick what they want to see. They won't be shown ads and will be pre­vent­ed from ac­cess­ing the Web or so­cial me­dia. Kids al­so won't be able to make pay­ments with­in ap­pli­ca­tions.

Ama­zon, which is based in Seat­tle, is launch­ing the ser­vice as com­pe­ti­tion heats up in the tablet mar­ket among Ap­ple, Barnes & No­ble, Mi­crosoft and Sam­sung. Ama­zon's strat­e­gy is to of­fer the Kin­dle at a rel­a­tive­ly low price and make mon­ey sell­ing the con­tent. Ama­zon's stock in­creased $1.47, or 0.6 per cent, to close yes­ter­day at $253.96.