Amazon and HBO just announced a licensing agreement that will let Amazon Prime members watch HBO content.

The first wave of HBO content — which includes old shows like "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" — will arrive on Prime Instant Video by May 21, with other, more recent shows like "Girls" and "Newsroom" rolling out later, about three years after they aired on HBO (sorry, no "Game Of Thrones").

HBO GO, the company's streaming service that gives access to its vast catalogue of new and old shows and movies, will also be available on Amazon's Fire TV by the end of the year.

Last month, Amazon raised the price of its Prime memberships from $79 to $99. Prime members get unlimited free two-day shipping on many items as well as access to Amazon Instant Video. Besides this huge influx of HBO content, Amazon is also releasing a handful of original shows this year.

By beefing up its video content, Amazon is making Prime subscriptions more attractive to potential members, and the more people who sign up for Prime, the better for Amazon (people with Prime spend almost double the amount on Amazon as non-members). This news also comes hot on the heels of the release of Amazon's Fire TV streaming video box. The box costs $99.99, and Amazon likely hopes that adding more "free" content will persuade people to ditch AppleTV or Roku to buy it.

Does this new deal mean bad news for Netflix? Not necessarily. While the partnership makes Amazon Instant Video's new catalog very enticing for binge-watchers and Amazon Prime an even better deal for members, Netflix has done a great job of creating original content that viewers love and wouldn't want to give up, like "Orange Is The New Black" and "House Of Cards." Because Amazon Prime offers much more than just TV and Netflix is still relatively inexpensive, it doesn't have to be a case of either/or.

Here's the press release: