Two news items coming from Amazon today: a gaming veteran hire and a music site acquisition, Amie Street. Amazon has poached a top video game specialist from Microsoft, Andre Vrignaud, as a new executive for the retailer. No details about Vrignaud’s new position or role have been revealed, but this is a strong move towards Amazon’s gaming initiatives, whatever they may be.

At Microsoft Vrignaud was the director of game platform strategy, where he spent the last eight of his twenty years in the industry. Vrignaud’s focus there was developing strategies around Xbox, Xbox Live and Windows, only recently shifting to mobile gaming.

The interest in gaming shouldn’t be too surprising, even while Amazon remains tight-lipped about it. The latest plays by Apple and Google threaten Amazon in its digital media sector, and Amazon has always needed to be creative in its competitive moves around their dominance. With Apple now supporting live multiplayer games, and Google having made a sweep of acquisitions and investments in social gaming, it’s evident that mobile games are high on many executives’ lists.

Amazon has been able to hold its own with the Kindle, though it will be interesting to see exactly what Amazon plans on doing around mobile gaming. As a retailer, I imagine Amazon’s best scenario would be as a payment gateway for purchasing device-agnostic games. That would put Amazon in a good position, as larger cloud initiatives push for the growth of such platforms, particularly as the Apple and Google camps grow in independent directions.

While gaming is a curious move for Amazon, its acquisition of Amie Street’s music site is something the retailer knows all about. The four year-old startup received early investment from Amazon, and its service will be absorbed into Amazon’s service. It’s actually a little sad to see Amie Street go this way, as it has potential to lose its indie appeal.

The team behind Amie Street, however, will be focusing on Songza, the project it acquired last year. Songza has had quite an evolution all its own, starting as a simple radio station that created endless playlists from YouTube videos. The on-demand notion of web-based, personalized radio has met improvements over the years, and will now take on some trendy social gaming features, like check-ins.