A new competitor enters the console gaming market and it's none other than Amazon. During its hardware event today, the tech giant announced that it's entering the console gaming market with Amazon Luna. Rather than being a direct competitor to the PS5 or Xbox Series X, Luna is more of a competitor to Google Stadia. Like the latter, Luna is a cloud-based gaming service but is powered by Amazon Web Service (AWS) and is available on PC, Mac, Fire TV and web apps for iPhone and iPad (Android is planned for later). Games are playable with either Xbox One controller, DualShock 4 controller, mouse/keyboard or the newly announced Luna Controller; a controller apparently took some inspiration from the Nintendo Switch's Pro Controller, with the notable addition of a virtual assistant button:

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While this service has been announced today, early access to Luna is available in mainland U.S. only and exclusively by invitation on its official website, which will be issued on a rolling basis. This early access is priced at $5.99 per month, streams at up to 1080p with select titles streamed at up to 4K resolution and supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The company recommends a minimum internet connection speed of 10 Mbps for streaming games and mentions a 35 Mbps connection required to play in 4K.

The Alexa-enabled Luna Controller goes for $49.99 during the early access period, and will be available for purchase only by those who have received an invitation to Luna. Amazon's controller connects directly to Amazon's cloud servers, allowing for lower latency and enabling players to easily switch between screens (such as Fire TV to mobile phone) without the need for additional pairing or configuration changes.

Amazon Luna will also feature Twitch integration which the company explains as follows:

“Inside the Luna experience, players will see Twitch streams for games in the service, and from Twitch, they’ll be able to instantly start playing Luna games.”

As part of the announcement, Luna+ was also introduced as "a growing library of new and favorite titles" that will host over 100 games. Launch titles will include Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2, Yooka-Laylee, GRID, Abzu, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons; with more to be added "over time". Amazon also announced the Ubisoft channel, the first of additional gaming channels, which will include older and newer Ubisoft games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. But no pricing was announced for this additional channel.

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What do you think of the Amazon Luna? Do you think cloud gaming services will replace traditional gaming consoles? Share your thoughts below!

Amazon Luna Official Website

 

[Foxi4]

The cloud gaming market is getting oversaturated, we now have xCloud, PS Now, Stadia, Geforce NOW, Shadow, Luna and possibly more that I can't name off the top of my head. This market bubble will pop, just like the 80's microcomputer and the 10's Android box set bubbles popped. Usually it's a good thing to be spoiled for choice, but with this much competition over a limited amount of screens you're going to see big failures real soon, and nobody wants to invest in a library of games that is likely to disappear with the first rainy day.

 

[notimp]

The cloud gaming market is getting oversaturated, we now have xCloud, PS Now, Stadia, Geforce NOW, Shadow, Luna and possibly more that I can't name off the top of my head. This market bubble will pop, just like the 80's microcomputer and the 10's Android box set bubbles popped. Usually it's a good thing to be spoiled for choice, but with this much competition over a limited amount of screens you're going to see big failures real soon, and nobody wants to invest in a library of games that is likely to disappear with the first rainy day.

Not out for confrontation, but - no, up front cost is not that high, even if it isnt a huge success. You pay for a fastlink and some serverboxes at the ISP level, do some revenueshare deals with your content providers (providing largely older stuff, so their payout wouldnt be 'great') and then you do PR pushes to have people subscribe.

That and because of the low barrier of entry - you actually get word of mouth marketing that should work.

For someone like amazon its an almost ideal service (they are heavily into horizontal integration, so getting more and more people into paying for prime, then raising its price slowly over time, ...). Much more so, as they already run the AWS cloud.

nVidia has difficulties with content deals and, and end consumer marketing (they cant even put a list of games out in a way that would be parseable), but they make the hardware so, why not make a bunch more and try to establish your own brand? Also getting to know ISP infrastructures and building contacts can be valuable for them as well.

Google has an 'identity crisis' issue. Nothing about their service screams 'gaming' and banking on higher price exclusives seems risky - but their real testrun starts with an exclusive like Cyberpunk 2077. And they already are in the ISP facilities, ...

Those things will probably end, when management looses interest, but not with a bang, but as those services simply getting no new content deals, but still raking in casual subscription payments, even if at low volume.

And as long as the 'main brand' is big enough to have you read a news announcement once in a while - heck, their could be five competitors out there easily. (Just as with streaming services.)

edit:

Luna will run games off of Windows on AWS.


And if you want to read a funny subreddit, Stadia delivers..
https://old.reddit.com/r/Stadia/

 

[laurorual]

The cloud gaming market is getting oversaturated, we now have xCloud, PS Now, Stadia, Geforce NOW, Shadow, Luna and possibly more that I can't name off the top of my head. This market bubble will pop, just like the 80's microcomputer and the 10's Android box set bubbles popped. Usually it's a good thing to be spoiled for choice, but with this much competition over a limited amount of screens you're going to see big failures real soon, and nobody wants to invest in a library of games that is likely to disappear with the first rainy day.

There's also the fragmentation that cames with it. i dont think there's crossplay between those services (with the exception of GeForce Now and Shadow) and they problably wont think about it in the near future. We are just getting more games with crossplay on local consoles (PS4, Xbox One, Switch) now because of years asking for it. So you basically will play with random people if one cloud gaming service doesn't become "the big one to use".

 

[Vila_]

Its funny how history keeps repeating itself, I’ll just be here watching this fail like the amazon fire phone

 

[Pipistrele]

I mean you could stream those to a phone from a pc if you really want portability and for some reason refuse to get a switch

I kinda tried it myself actually, but it's still a somewhat janky solution - if Steam crashes, or computer turns off, or some other weird thing, then you're out of videogames until you can physically reach your PC, and even then, I'm iffy about the idea of working, unsecured computer (laptop in my case) being turned on when I'm not home, not living alone and all. Just having a server somewhere else that does all above for me 24/7 is way more convenient.

 

[limpbiz411]

Game streaming won't be viable until Quantum Computing!

 

[Codemastershock]

They should launch it here in Brazil, we are in need of some cloud gaming service for a long time. Consoles and PC Parts are REALLY expensive right now, but our internet is cheap and basically all in fiber, so it's hard to find someone with bad internet.
The first service to launch in Brazil will become the standard one, for sure.

I agree in parts, bur not with the arguments used. I dont know in what Brazil you live in, outside the very, very big cities, the internet connection is very poor and fiber in many places, the customer has to pay high prices if they want to use it because there is no fiber infrastructure nearby.
And Samsung, before the partnership with Microsoft tried to bring Gamefly embedded into their tvs and it didnt work, even though it was highly optimized for our poor internet connections (meaning, it was really focused on performance rather than quality, they had a lot of local servers and it still had its hiccups sometimes).
I agree that, it will work if connections start to get reliable, especially 4G and 5G, even though the price of a one year subscription could afford a console or a good gaming PC, it is appealing for the common consumer to pay a low monthly fee instead of paying a high price upfront and Brazilians are already very accustomed to this because everything is expensive. For people around the world, plans like Xbox All Access which break the console price into a monthly "subscription" are a "new idea" and here it isnt, every retailer or even a small shop can offer installment plans like a subscription.
I dont think the end consumer cares that much about technical fidelity, what I mean is that, for the streaming services to work, the tech behind has to be good enough for a pleasant experience. Streaming services in general win for convenience rather than technical achievements.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Considering AWS is the undeniable king of the cloud world probably they are in the best position to provide the best service.
But I couldn't care less about cloud gaming.

 

[Foxi4]

Considering AWS is the undeniable king of the cloud world probably they are in the best position to provide the best service.
But I couldn't care less about cloud gaming.

My big worry is that in the foreseeable future you won't have a choice in the matter. Many years ago, back in the DS days, I predicted the death of the handheld console. I said, I paraphrase, "the gaming console will follow the same path as media players, portable cameras, personal navigation systems and personal digital assistants - it will be integrated into your phone". As of today the only portable console available is the Switch, and now the Switch is up against competitors that are not bound by the constraints of hardware, only Internet connection speed. If Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Sony or NVidia want to deliver you a 4K 120 FPS ultra-high detail gaming experience on the go, they have the power to do that. I don't like this system on principle, it takes away the user's digital rights, but when you compare something like The Outer Worlds on Nintendo Switch and on xCloud, there's no contest. It's happening - it's happening in a way that I didn't expect, but it is.

 

[the_randomizer]

Oh yeah, I can't wait to pay for games I can't even own on my own devices and lose access to them once the servers shut down. People don't like the Stadia, so who the hell does Amazon think they are by shoving even more streaming BS down our throats?

 

[WaffleRaccoon]

Can't wait for this to screw up like Stadia

 

[the_randomizer]

Can't wait for this to screw up like Stadia

Oh same here, I hope for most game streaming services to just flop

 

[laurorual]

I agree in parts, bur not with the arguments used. I dont know in what Brazil you live in, outside the very, very big cities, the internet connection is very poor and fiber in many places, the customer has to pay high prices if they want to use it because there is no fiber infrastructure nearby.
And Samsung, before the partnership with Microsoft tried to bring Gamefly embedded into their tvs and it didnt work, even though it was highly optimized for our poor internet connections (meaning, it was really focused on performance rather than quality, they had a lot of local servers and it still had its hiccups sometimes).
I agree that, it will work if connections start to get reliable, especially 4G and 5G, even though the price of a one year subscription could afford a console or a good gaming PC, it is appealing for the common consumer to pay a low monthly fee instead of paying a high price upfront and Brazilians are already very accustomed to this because everything is expensive. For people around the world, plans like Xbox All Access which break the console price into a monthly "subscription" are a "new idea" and here it isnt, every retailer or even a small shop can offer installment plans like a subscription.
I dont think the end consumer cares that much about technical fidelity, what I mean is that, for the streaming services to work, the tech behind has to be good enough for a pleasant experience. Streaming services in general win for convenience rather than technical achievements.

It's true idk most of Brazil, but at least in my state (Bahia), even in really small cities with a population of 13k people we get fiber for cheap. I though it was like this in other states as well!
And you mentioned Gamefly, but i only saw it in expensive Samsung TVs and i never really saw any ad explaning what it really was, it was not as widespread as GeForce Now could be if it launched here.

 

[TaffyFox]

The thought of playing a fast paced side scroller which requires lightning fast reflexes via a streaming platform disgusts me.

Add video artifacting on top of that and mmm, that's one hot steaming mess!

Don't you mean hot streaming mess?

 

[64bitmodels]

give me a plastic box or give me nothing
I don't want no streaming service

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I lurk GBAtemp news and I believe I have never seen a positive comment from you, pretty impressive.

If it's not sony or PC he's going to shit on it and dismiss it
that's just the way of bladexdsl

 

[raxadian]

Amazon is using Windows games for the service, how much is Microsoft invested on this?

 

[ccfman2004]

My biggest issue is for people in the US who still don't have reliable broadband internet. Some places still only have DSL, Satellite or nothing at all. Until everyone has access to affordable reliable broadband like at least 50mbps for downloads AND uploads cloud gaming is just not going to work. I still prefer consoles as once I have the game installed, at least for Playstation and Switch, I no longer need the internet to play said game since I don't play multiplayer games so when the internet goes down, I have Comcast and it does goes down from time to time, I can still play.

 

[bubolechka]

Xbox 360/X1 controller has been confirmed the BEST CONTROLLER EVER DESIGNED!

See all other console makers copy from him?

First of all - that's almost exact copy of Switch pro controller, so i don't know why you say that at first. Second, I don't want to enter in this endless conversation but........ WHO TF confirmed that ? For ME - DualShock II -> All... So it's just a matter of personal opinion. There will never be a BEST controller, you know, there is soooooo many factors including - Man hands vs Woman hands vs small kid hands vs position of the analog pads vs different D-pad's and their position too vs buttons - triggers....so yeah... And finally, i talk from my experience and my opinion - Xbox controllers are just not comfortable enough for me like DualShock's (no matter 1/2/3) - DS4 is very solid made, feels great in hands BUT I still prefer the feel of the original DS design...

 

[leon315]

Xbox 360/X1 controller is indeed the best controller ever designed, Proves? Even Amazon, Switch PRO has copied from him, WHICH MAKES Xbox controller the most plagiarized controller ever.

First of all - that's almost exact copy of Switch pro controller, so i don't know why you say that at first. Second, I don't want to enter in this endless conversation but........ WHO TF confirmed that ? For ME - DualShock II -> All... So it's just a matter of personal opinion. There will never be a BEST controller, you know, there is soooooo many factors including - Man hands vs Woman hands vs small kid hands vs position of the analog pads vs different D-pad's and their position too vs buttons - triggers....so yeah... And finally, i talk from my experience and my opinion - Xbox controllers are just not comfortable enough for me like DualShock's (no matter 1/2/3) - DS4 is very solid made, feels great in hands BUT I still prefer the feel of the original DS design...

 

[Codemastershock]

It's true idk most of Brazil, but at least in my state (Bahia), even in really small cities with a population of 13k people we get fiber for cheap. I though it was like this in other states as well!

I live something about 10, 15 minutes from a big city in São Paulo and around 20 minutes from the downtown itself and I cant even change the provider, let alone choose to use fiber.