Amazon has announced the competitor to Xcloud and Stadia in Luna. A streaming service starting at 6.99 while in early access where you can add on channels such as ubisoft channel for additional fees.
Early Access can be requested here:
Luna Compatible Controllers:
Luna Controller
Xbox One Controller,
DualShock 4 Controller,
Mouse and Keyboard.
Supported Devices:
PC (requires Windows 10 with support for DirectX 11)
Mac (OSX 10.13+)
FireTV devices (Fire TV Stick - 2nd gen, Fire TV Stick 4K, or Fire TV Cube - 2nd gen)
" Players who subscribe to this channel will have access to their favorite Ubisoft titles in up to 4K resolution, mobile gameplay, and access to new titles when the channel launches like Assassins Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6 , and Immortals Fenyx Rising the same day they release. This is the first of multiple Luna game channels in development, where customers can play games from their favorite publishers and genres."
It already is way too late for Sony. They used to use Amazon for their online infrastructure but Amazon priced em out and forced em over to Azure. Sony has no way to compete with Microsoft/Google/Amazon. Luckily, Google’s go at this is DOA.
I can honestly see why Microsoft is worried about Google stadia and now amazon luna.
Think about it like this, Google owns the app store on android and YouTube, literally they can advertise stadia to everyone and anyone, most people using these services have a Gmail account that can easily check out stadia.
Now amazon, they have hundreds of millions of amazon prime members & they own twitch, they could literally bundle it in or trial it via the amazon prime service, that is a massive audience.
They are genuine threats to Microsoft xcloud (whilst I know everyone currently bashes stadia, things can change)
Yup, I think gaming will end up being Microsoft vs Amazon longterm. It should be an interesting few years. I will be curious if we see a big run on studios and publishers. As Microsoft would 100% bid against anything Amazon’s bidding for studio wise just so they couldn’t have it. .
Yep, and given the history of the other two I’m only really worried about Amazon being the one that sticks around. How that will affect the industry and developers that get acquired by any of the aforementioned three is my greatest concern.
Microsoft saw this threat coming and Google…didn’t.
Luna adverts on Amazon’s web site. Luna discounts on Amazon Prime Day. Luna discounts for Amazon Prime members?
Plus, its looks like Luna will be on iOS:
With Luna, Amazon has discovered another way to circumvent Apple’s App Store fees. Luna is a progressive web application (PWA), which means it’s actually a browser-based program masquerading as a native iOS app. You’ll download the PWA from the Luna website, and the resulting icon on your iPhone’s home screen will function like a shortcut to Amazon’s cloud gaming portal on the web.
As a PWA, Luna is not involved in the App Store at all.
“Just to be super transparent, on iOS, it is through the browser,” Whitten said. “So it’s not a native app in the App Store.”
100 games for the beta + Ubisoft are on board. Amazon are taking cloud gaming more seriously then Google ever did, I really don’t know what they’re thinking with Stadia. Surely they have to change the business plan with that.
