Amazon's party-ready Echo Buttons are available to pre-order

The holidays are almost here, and that means you may end up playing a lot of party games with visiting friends and relatives. Amazon might spare you from having to break out yet another board game, though: it just put its Echo Button accessory up for pre-order. Pay $20 and you'll get two of the super-simple controllers for Alexa-driven entertainment like Beat the Intro (a name-that-song title) or Fourth Down Football Trivia. They should be released on December 19th, or just soon enough that they could accompany an Echo speaker you're gifting to a special someone.

The buttons work with every Echo model to date and run on (thankfully included) AAA batteries. You won't have a wide variety of compatible titles to play out of the gate, but that might change once the buttons are available and creators can make Alexa games that rely on more than just your voice.