Back in September during the Amazon Event, the company announced that it would be launching Amazon Luna, a cloud video game streaming service in the vein of Microsoft's Project xCloud and Google Stadia. Interested gamers were immediately able to register for early access consideration, and Amazon stated that invites would be sent out on a rolling basis.
One of the differentiators of Amazon Luna is that the gaming catalog will be broken up into channels, with two already announced. The first channel, Luna+, will comprise titles already licensed by Amazon, and the second confirmed channel will consist of games by Ubisoft. Each channel will have a separate subscription fee and a distinct catalog of games.
According to Amazon, hundreds of thousands of people applied for a spot in the Amazon Luna early access testing program, and invites have now begun to roll out. Only a handful of lucky people have been able to start previewing the service so far, but feedback is already coming in. While not expected to be any real competition for Microsoft’s xCloud platform, Luna is considered a potential threat to Google Stadia, which has been floundering in the year since its launch. So how does Amazon Luna rate as a budding video game streaming service?
The Verge (Chaim Gartenberg)
“We found that we needed a connection of at least 25 Mbps in order to have a consistently playable stream… The best performance (of course) came from a PC with a wired Ethernet connection and controller... Playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on that solid of a connection was virtually indistinguishable from the game running natively… Metro: Exodus, one of the most graphically intensive games available to stream, looked and played decidedly worse streamed to a web browser than it does on a capable gaming PC. Honestly, it doesn’t look great in either Luna or Stadia, but at least Stadia could keep up with a mouse and keyboard. Luna’s mouse was extremely laggy… Regardless of how well they play, these games load fast.”
Gaming Nexus (Eric Hauter)
“I don't have Fire TV, so for today my options were to play over Chrome, or to download the tiny 80mb app file. I tried both (fairly quickly), and found the experience and interface to be nearly identical… The current library has a healthy number of indies, with a couple of big-budget bangers creeping in around the sides… My first choice was Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The first time I started the game, it crapped out and crashed almost immediately, which I took as a bad sign. This turned out to be a fluke, however, as for the rest of my time experimenting with Luna, the signal was clear and clean… So far, I'm very impressed with what I'm seeing with Luna.”
Reddit (ylexot007)
“Overall, streaming games seemed to work pretty well for me… Luna controller not available yet. Just got an email saying 29 October. Apparently, there's no online multiplayer? That seems odd for a cloud service… Compared to the Stadia launch, Stadia may have had a smaller library, but they were generally better games. Luna=quantity, Stadia=quality.”
Reddit (dragonchasers)
“Playing on a PC, wired Ethernet, using the app. Gameplay was fine. I didn't notice any stutters or pixelation. No audio issues. I could swear a couple of button presses got dropped but generally input lag felt OK… Beyond actually playing games, though, the service is still really bare bones.”
The general consensus seems to be that, given a good and stable connection, streaming most games with Amazon Luna is clean and nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, although more graphically intensive titles like Metro Exodus left a lot to be desired. And over a slower connection or spotty Wi-Fi, even less demanding games would play choppy or laggy. Amazon doesn’t seem to degrade the video quality when it runs into a bad connection, but instead drops frames until the connection improves.
While the current gaming library consists of only 50 games, that’s understandable considering that Amazon Luna just entered early access. And because it’s easier for developers to add their games to the service than to Stadia, for example, where developers have to migrate to Google’s Linux servers, it’s expected that Luna’s library will quickly expand and more gaming channels added.
The Luna+ channel will cost $5.99 per month during Amazon Luna's early access and, although users can play games on the service with any Bluetooth gaming controller, a Luna Controller can be purchased for the temporarily reduced price of $49.99. The subscription price for the Ubisoft channel, which is expected to be available soon, has not yet been announced.
Amazon Luna is currently in early access on Fire TV, iOS, Mac, and PC.