Stadia, GeForce NOW and Microsoft's own xCloud have more competition coming with Amazon formally throwing their controller onto the sofa with Amazon Luna.
Amazon Luna will give you access to certain Channels of games which you subscribe to. The first two announced are Amazon's own Luna+ to get access to a "growing" library and Ubisoft are also confirmed to have their own subscription channel coming to it too. The Luna+ subscription will have 100s of games from big names too like Resident Evil 7, Control, The Surge 2, A Plague Tale: Innocence and a great many more. By the time it launches, it's going to have quite a full library already.
Instead of the Stadia and GeForce NOW model, they're very much going for a 'Netflix of games' style that Microsoft is doing with things like Game Pass. Just like Google Stadia, Amazon Luna will have its own dedicated Alexa-enabled gamepad which connects directly to Amazon through WiFi which is supposed to help reduce latency which is the biggest problem with these services.
Luna will come with heavy Twitch integration too, including showing you Twitch streams for games across the Luna service. This makes sense, since Amazon own Twitch. This is where it gets really interesting, and something Google has been ridiculously slow on with Stadia. You will see Twitch streams inside Luna, and be able to click play and jump right into a game while watching on Twitch. The power of that cannot be understated.
Currently, early access to Luna is available exclusively by invitation and even then that's only in the USA. Everyone else will just have to sit and wait until Amazon open it up further.
It's not clear if it will work on Linux or be supported at this time. However, Amazon did mention it can be played in a Chrome browser so it's quite likely it will be able to run on Linux just like Stadia and GeForce NOW. Full press release available here and you can find the Luna page here. Once we find out more and any Linux details, we will let you know.
How long until Valve throw their Steam Controller onto the sofa and announce their own? If they don't, they might end up as one of the only major gaming stores not to at this rate. The cloud game streaming wars have truly begun now. How do you feel about it?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by SuperTux on 24 September 2020 at 6:46 pm UTC
Mohandevir Sep 24, 2020
QuoteHow long until Valve throw their Steam Controller onto the sofa and announce their own?
We always have the choice, but Valve is in a position where it could crush everyone of them, if they don't wait too long. I'm affraid that's what might play against Valve... Valve time.
The train is leaving the station, they should jump onboard before it's too late. New market... Better early than late.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 24 September 2020 at 6:58 pm UTC
Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.Especially with all of them going for subscriptions. I’m not going to pay 20$ a month to five different services to play one game on each.
Perkeleen_Vittupää Sep 24, 2020
Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.
And in the end, all paths lead to Linux...
Kimyrielle Sep 24, 2020
Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.
If they overdo it, it will fail. Just like now literally every movie studio, no matter how insignificant, thinks it needs to start its own streaming service with exclusive content for $15 a month. Remember the times when Netflix had ALL content for the same 15 bucks? Netflix is already established, and Disney is big enough to get away with it, but the rest of them will just die. In the meantime the only ones profiting from the fragmentation are the online pirates...
I suppose it will go down the same road here. These services will try to handcuff customers to their service by signing as many exclusive deals as possible, so gamers will face having to subscribe to 3 or 4 of them just to get the games they want. Which is not very attractive, so they will go back to Steam where they can get everything they want in one place.
*shrug*
i know that linux is the king when it comes to servers, but that isnt stoping nvidia from using windows with geforce now to get acess to the windows ecosystem of games.
i wonder why we cant have an "open handset alliance" with all the companies who want to have games on linux to improve the ecosystem of their platforms.
samsung tizen, tesla who is working with unity developers to improve their runtime on their system, google with stadia, valve with steamOS, and if amazon is using linux, they too.
if they joined efforts temporarily in porting multiplatform games, and focused their efforts in exclusives to differentiate then selves, they all would have an better chance to enter in the market dominated by sony/nintendo/microsoft.
instead looks like they're going with an "winers takes it all" aproach, paying again and again to do the same ports...
Quoting: elmapuli wonder why we cant have an "open handset alliance" with all the companies who want to have games on linux to improve the ecosystem of their platforms
I feel like the likes of Valve and Google could form a Linux gaming alliance and promote Linux gaming in more collaborative way. Too bad Google doesn't care. It doesn't look like Amazon cares either. Even their Lumberyard is lagging with Linux support.
and the name is a perfect fit.
but the controller, looks like some one just glued togheter 2 pieces to pretend they were just one...
hopefully i'm right and you can change the base depending on your hands size...
Last edited by elmapul on 24 September 2020 at 7:43 pm UTC
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