Amazon Announces Luna, Its Cloud Streaming Game Service

The rumors had been floating around for some time but today, Amazon formally announced its game streaming service called Luna. The service will be opening up to ‘Early Access’ gamers soon and you can register here if you are interested in trying out the service.

Luna will offer a custom controller that will connect directly to AWS via your WIFI, much like Stadia, and allow you to stream around 100 games at launch. Those games will stream at up to 4k but it sounds like most titles will be at 1080P. The quality of the stream will also heavily depend on your Internet connection.

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Initially, the service will cost $5.99 a month but expect that price to go up after the service reaches public availability; the controller will cost $49.99. And you will be able to play Luna on your TV, PC, Mac, and other mobile devices that include iOS.

But, according to the launch page, it looks like you play Luna through Safari on iOS, not through a dedicated app.

And as you would expect, there will be integration with Twitch, the company’s game streaming service; I would expect this service to be advertised heavily on that platform too.

This service will be competing directly with Microsoft’s Cloud Streaming offering inside of Game Pass Ultimate and also Google’s Stadia. While Microsoft and Sony are about to launch consoles, Amazon wants its name tossed into the arena before you purchase your next console.

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Conversation 10 comments

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    24 September, 2020 - 2:26 pm

    <p>Interesting… I wonder why they, and stadia, put the logic in the remote rather than leaving it to an app like xcloud does? Does it really affect the latency that much?</p><p>It'd be good to see these services, xcloud included but especially these cloud-only ones, consider the couch co-op scenarios. One TV or display device / dongle but 2-4 controllers. </p><p><br></p><p>Also, I tried to register interest. It goes without saying of course that it's US only…. I'll just have to "console" myself with my new Series X and home console streaming </p><p>(I'll see myself out ?) </p><p><br></p>

    • esmcelroy

      Premium Member
      24 September, 2020 - 3:00 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#578951">In reply to IanYates82:</a></em></blockquote><p>By moving the logic out of the app, they don't have to give Apple a 30% cut of subscriptions and can run it in Safari.</p>

  • crunchyfrog

    24 September, 2020 - 2:34 pm

    <p>I'm guessing that Luna won't be bogged down by any pesky AAA titles like Sony and Microsoft have to deal with. Luna will be more like the flea market of streaming games.</p><p>Hopefully this will fare better than gaming on the Fire TV and other endeavors like… mobile phones.</p>

    • Maarek

      24 September, 2020 - 2:58 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#578957">In reply to crunchyfrog:</a></em></blockquote><p>They have Ubisoft on board already which is a fairly large player. Also they may be able to work a deal with MS to have GamePass work as a channel with their service since they are much less restrictive than Apple with their app environment.</p><p><br></p><p>Given that FireTV is built on android I could see Luna being a way to turn a FireTV into a hardware platform that can play the small indy games as well as games from Microsoft/GamePass and Ubisoft. What Amazon gets from something like this is more people using the FireTV as their streaming interface which puts them in their ecosystem for videos. Depending on what Amazon is really looking for, they can offer a no-loss option for Microsoft… they can be a channel in Luna (with I'm sure a special arrangement on subscription costs) with an advantage in integration or they can just put the Xbox Gamepass app in the Amazon Store like they do with Google Play Store. Amazon wins something with either option and Microsoft gets another supported streaming platform for Xbox. </p>

  • remc86007

    24 September, 2020 - 3:20 pm

    <p>Looks like an OnLive controller. </p>

  • sammyg

    24 September, 2020 - 3:26 pm

    <p>This scares me more than anything. If Amazon buys someone like UbiSoft then I would be forced to interact with them and like Google I really do not wish to do so. </p>

  • mike2thel73

    24 September, 2020 - 5:50 pm

    <p>Amazon is out of their friggin minds. </p><p><br></p><p>They want us "to pay to be a beta tester" AND charge us for the controller?</p><p><br></p><p>What they should be doing is charging early testers NOTHING right now while it's in beta.</p><p><br></p><p>Once the final release goes live give early testers a choice to either keep the service and lock them in at $5.99 a month for a year and $49.99 for the controller OR send them a prepaid shipping label to send the controller back if they don't want to continue to use the service.</p><p><br></p><p>This is horse$h!t</p>

  • Rycott

    Premium Member
    24 September, 2020 - 7:14 pm

    <p>Yay! More streaming services. Lets hope this doesn't turn into the shit show that is movie/tv streaming services where you need like 40 different ones to watch what you want.</p>

  • dxhelios

    24 September, 2020 - 11:30 pm

    <p>I would like to see a competition for xCloud, because this would ultimately force development of market and technologies, but not like this. Why, why they are talking about 4K 60 on two screens? It is not possible, you cannot start your marketing campaign by lying. This will poison the market. The market, that you, presumably, want to develop. It is so awful.</p><p>This coming from guys who do not care about games, about gamers. It is just another stadia.</p><p>Compare the stack that is needed to stream games:</p><ul><li>integrate streaming on game engine level</li><li>optimize input on game level&nbsp;</li><li>good stream tech</li><li>good cloud tech</li><li>have multiple options to stream (from cloud or your home device)</li><li>game library</li><li>attractive value for price</li><li>different form factors and platforms</li><li>what about voice chat, separation of game and voice</li></ul><p>Amazon as Google miss a lot of points, but they start with 4K 60 fps marketing. Maybe for them it is enough to take miniscule amount of market, but they are destroying consumer trust, before it is even gained,… for all participants.</p>

  • lewk

    Premium Member
    25 September, 2020 - 4:14 am

    <p>You forgot to mention that it's US only.</p>

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