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Traditional gaming devices are on their own slow death spiral. You may like it, hate it, or disagree, but you no longer need a PC or console to play the latest AAA games on a variety of devices with large or small screens. Games are really getting like Netflix, just as we were promised.
No matter how you feel about it, you’re probably surprised that Amazon seems to have figured out the best way to make it happen. I know it was, but thinking about it a little more tells me that it probably shouldn’t be. Amazon is in the perfect position to offer its Luna game streaming service Y do better than the competition because you see where the competition is ruining you. And if Amazon is still wrong, so what? You can just scrap the idea and remain the company that feeds the richest human being on the entire planet.
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What is Luna and how does it work?
So what is Luna? It is a game streaming platform that does not require a physical console or the purchase of individual games. It also circumvents the old conventions of what we think of when we call something a game console.
This is one of the important parts because it is a way for Amazon to do two very important things: take advantage of its gigantic cloud infrastructure and get the service on the iPad or iPhone from all the users who want it.
Yes. Luna works with the iPhone.
A Luna controller is like a Chromecast with a joystick. No matter the platform (even though Android isn’t supported at launch for some crazy reason), you’re telling the Luna controller to connect to an Amazon cloud server and play a game. You are not By telling your phone or a Fire TV device to connect to an Amazon server, you are telling the controller to do the job.
All your phone, tablet, or even television needs to do is connect your display to some hardware inside the Luna controller that plays what’s happening on that giant Amazon server in the cloud. Think of it like you’re playing the game while streaming it live to your phone and you’ll have a general idea of how it works.
The controller does the job and the device connected to it really just plays it back as a video. That opens up a couple of cool features, like being able to switch devices on the fly; As long as you’ve “paired” the Luna controller, this transfer should be seamless, like hitting the pause button. But it also means that nothing Luna is doing needs to go through Apple’s approval process. iOS on both tablet and phone, as well as macOS, are supported from day one, something other game streaming services can’t boast of but wish they could.
The whole iOS thing is really big, but it’s likely just a side effect of the way Amazon ensures that each device, no matter how strong or weak your hardware is, you can have the same Luna experience.
Channels will make or break Luna
Amazon Luna has some great features on Twitch, like being able to get into a game where you watch your favorite streamer play (not in the same session, just in the same game) but we don’t know yet how well it’s going to work or if it’s something we even want to be able to do. But the most important feature of Luna is the full-channel content model.
A quick refresher on how everything works is in order. You buy your Amazon Luna controller and a premium basic Luna experience costs you $ 5 a month. That $ 5 gives you access to about 50 games, and not all of them suck:
Introducing the Luna + gaming channel. During Early Access, we will have popular games like Control, Resident Evil 7, GRID, Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Our goal is to make sure there is always something to play for everyone in the family. And this is just the beginning, there is much, much more to come.
To sweeten the mix, Amazon will also introduce channels. The first named channel comes from Ubisoft, but we are told there are others in development.
Amazon also announced a new gaming channel with the world’s leading video game publisher Ubisoft, available directly through Luna. 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 such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, and Immortals Fenyx Rising on the same day they launch. This is the first of several Luna publisher game channels in development, where customers can play games from their favorite publishers and genres.
We don’t know how much each channel will cost, but if the price is right, this could be a great way to make your library look like one that you would actually buy rather than the spaghetti a publisher or game studio would throw at you.
Luna can fail and the rest of Amazon wouldn’t even notice
Amazon has a lot in common with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass and Google’s Stadia when it comes to potential of running a successful game streaming service. You need a giant cloud infrastructure, passionate employees Y shiny and very deep pockets. Things diverge a bit and you see companies like Microsoft and NVIDIA on one side of an imaginary line while Google and Amazon are on the other. Amazon and Google are not gaming companies, and if any fail here, it’s little more than a small dip in a graph showing profit and loss.
Luna is just a small problem in Amazon’s finances for 2020 and beyond.
This is really important because it gives both companies the freedom to test different types of transmission models. Google isn’t really exploring this, but Amazon’s channels for Luna + are. You may want a Ubisoft channel to play Rainbow 6. You may want an EA channel to play Madden. We may both want a separate channel to play Spelunky 2. All Amazon needs to do is negotiate a contract and focus on value – something Sony could learn from after pricing individual PS5 games at 70. Dollars.
The Xbox and GeForce brands don’t have this luxury. These are gaming companies and individuals have higher expectations for it. This means issues with Apple, not having the titles that people want, and connection or complexity errors make gamers very unhappy. Gamera who may have waited too long for the company logo. Microsoft and NVIDIA cannot be allowed to fail in the same way as Stadia or Luna.
I don’t think Luna will fail. It might not be the big hit Amazon is hoping for (looking at you Stadia), but it should still be available next year. It all depends on how Amazon can curate and maintain the channels.
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