Amazon Luna is live and already streaming Google Stadia

Amazon Luna’s first strength, compared to existing competition, is its incredibly clear sales pitch: Pay a monthly fee to access streaming-only games on a variety of devices, with no confusion as to whether something is console specific or of the device, or if it requires an à la carte purchase. Its second strength is its price-content proposition, which offers 50 games in its current beta period at a fee of $ 5.99 / month.

Rather than selling “performance” level upgrades, as in Stadia or GeForce Now, Amazon has gone for a smart “channel” strategy. Think about how you access multiple movies and TV series in one streaming box (like, you know, Amazon Fire TV). You pay Netflix, Hulu, and others a monthly fee, then visit their portals for specific content. Amazon Luna works the same way, with only Amazon’s “Luna +” channel available at time of publication. Amazon has already announced that Ubisoft will have its own Luna channel, which will require a separate monthly subscription (price not yet confirmed).

Cloud gaming, meet explosive processing

I can’t help but be impressed by this channel-based approach to game streaming. If Luna +’s $ 5.99 / month cost is representative of what we can expect from each channel, then that could mean a variety of subscription options from $ 5-15 that users can pick up and drop off whenever they want, depending on the content available and actually this is what I wanted from Stadia all along. Plus, the Luna + seven-day trial is a solid period to estimate how well your ideal cloud gaming setup performs with Amazon’s service.

Speaking of: what kind of performance can you expect?

I tested Luna through its dedicated Windows app (although it also works in most desktop web browsers) on a wired Ethernet computer. The gallery above includes explanations on other supported devices. At press time, it’s a solid but incomplete list, with iOS’s Safari browser making the cut, Android’s Chrome lagging behind, and only the latest generation of Amazon’s streaming devices and set-top boxes qualifying. (Without an official Android app still available, you’re currently out of luck trying to download Amazon Luna on other set-top boxes.)

My home internet connection, provided by Comcast in Seattle, maxes out at approximately 275 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. That’s decent enough for all of the streaming services listed earlier in this article, and the differences between each are possibly negligible. In my anecdotal experience, at least, I found that GeForce Now offers the fastest controls and highest fidelity of the bunch, with Project xCloud standing out as an incredibly responsive wireless service (as it focuses on smartphone streaming right now). But they all exhibit lag bits and image artifacts, if you look hard enough.

I point out all of this because Luna is generally fine enough as a streaming option on its first day of public operation. In particular, I have found the image quality of its 1080p stream to be incredibly clear, even with fast-moving content.

But my “faster” gameplay demo, the “explosive processing” revival of 2017 Sonic mania, also exposed Luna’s struggle to produce consistent animation frames. While the game looks pretty sharp at one point, it rarely produces blurry or fuzzy animation frames; Instead, the service has so far opted to drop frames entirely when it can’t keep up with bandwidth limitations. Does it like this quite sporadically, so picking up on it has been difficult, as opposed to some kind of constant or reproducible stuttering. At times, I have seen some dropped frames in a single three minute level. Other times, I’ve seen full 10 minute stretches go by without the frame dropping.

With this in mind, I noticed the Contra Collection in the Luna + library and loaded it immediately as it includes a difficult side scrolling action from the NES era. Would Luna’s frame drop issues lead to dropped inputs? Against en Luna definitely didn’t answer me that. If I moved my action hero to safety and pressed the B button, I could fire my weapon steadily without interruption due to stuttering. But once I got back to running and shooting, based on normal gameplay, I ran into several instances where my tapping of any of the commands just didn’t translate into gameplay. (Result: I died a few times. I also died many more times simply from being rusted in Against.)

No ray tracing in these clouds (yet)

The only other major caveat at press time is that the most demanding 3D games on Luna + at the moment, Control Y Metro Exodus, it does not include any option to toggle ray tracing or actually to toggle any PC-style visual options. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as Amazon previously confirmed that its Luna server stack would include Nvidia’s ray-tracing-capable T4 GPUs … but those are from the Turing generation, whose ray-tracing prowess is not as robust as this. Ampere line of the year.

Ultimately, it’s not surprising to skip those computationally expensive effects as part of a broader launch of the streaming service, to ensure crisp gaming performance whenever possible. But it’s still worth noting, especially since GeForce Now’s paid tier includes selective ray tracing support in its games.

When it comes to button-touch latency, I used a slow motion camera to measure the time between a button touch and an action in a streamed game. My recorded tests showed Luna neck and neck with GeForce Now, as I was able to directly compare Metro Exodus in both services controlled with an Xbox gamepad connected via a 2.4GHz adapter. GeForce Now consistently enjoyed a control latency advantage over Luna, albeit only with a value of two or three frames, and that’s with a game running at 60 frames per second. In other words, Luna lost only about 0.05 seconds.

GeForce Now enjoys a clearer win in terms of overall smoothness, on the other hand, as it doesn’t drop as many frames as Luna does for the sake of connectivity. If this is simply an Amazon issue that needs to prioritize smoothness over fidelity, or at least offer that as an option, I’d gladly take a few more blurry frames to make sure I don’t miss a single jump from Sonic on Moon. I hope the Luna beta period will fix this specific issue before inviting more users to participate.

Otherwise, the half-dozen 3D power sets on the Luna + opening slate are absolutely manageable to play with with the slight frame-drop issues I encountered on the first day of service. I have noticed a slight “slip” of the input lag, more in Metro Exodus‘first-person shooter than any other title, but Luna + has wisely avoided nervous shooters outside the door. Their emphasis on retro-friendly lateral scrolls, on the other hand, is a bit curious, as they’re very sensitive to latency … and don’t necessarily flex Amazon’s massive AWS muscles. (I’m also curious how Luna will scale with plus users beyond this limited invitation-only period).

Unlike something controllable like a game console, your mileage with a cloud gaming service, Luna, or otherwise, will likely vary based on each variable in your household. How is your average online connectivity? What are Amazon’s servers like in your part of the world? And does your favorite “game” room in your home include easy access to a wired connection so you can avoid the inherent latency hiccups even with the 5 GHz Wi-Fi bands?

That’s all a decent amount of friction. But from the looks of things, Amazon Luna at least makes sure it doesn’t accumulate friction. upper part of that proposal, making anyone’s path to a seven-day free trial that much easier once the service is more open to the public.