Where does Amazon Luna stand in the Off-Console Gaming /Cloud Gaming battlefield?

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onQ123

Member
They seem to have a lot going for them & most people will only need to connect a Bluetooth controller to their TV or Fire Stick to jump in & start playing because so many people already subscribe to Amazon Prime.

I haven't bought any games for it yet but I have a few free games already in my account,


 
It's an absolutely irrelevant. Unless Amazon makes some deals to stream Xbox, PSN, Steam, EGS, etc. games. Nobody sane will buy games on this service (is they even possible?).
 
StereoVsn said:
It's an absolutely irrelevant. Unless Amazon makes some deals to stream Xbox, PSN, Steam, EGS, etc. games. Nobody sane will buy games on this service (is they even possible?).
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Is what even possible?

You literally can buy games & play them on your TV right now .
 
Every now and then I try the free games offered through Prime, and I have to say, they usually work very well. Very occasionally, it lags or the graphics aren't as good for a moment. But I haven't bought any games there yet. I don't know if I ever would.
 
I tried it yesterday on my Steam Deck to play AC: Shadows and it was... interesting. Although the gpu had 24GB (it was called Nvidia VGX iirc, so no idea about what its specs supposedly were), I had to keep everything on High settings and frame gen off, or it wouldn't even hit 60 fps. With frame gen on, it would tank at around 40 fps regardless of graphic settings. Besides that, latency felt good and the experience itself wasn't bad, but I certainly was expecting something else after trying Geforce Now a couple months ago.
 
I sometimes play the free with prime games on there. It's actually pretty good. I never experienced any latency on my fire cube v2 over ethernet. Better experience than gamepass. But i wouldnt throw money on it. If you have prime claim all those GOG games. There's a decent amount of GOG games you can stream in Luna.

Games available on Amazon Luna | GOG.COM

Download the best classic and new games on Windows, Mac & Linux. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies and 30-day money-back guarantee.
www.gog.com www.gog.com
 
The issue is rarely the service itself, rather how you access it. The convenience is in theory.

Like for xCloud on Fire TV. My Fire TV sweats when I turn it on, takes ages to load any app, and its bluetooth isn't the best. I don't see myself plugging it a controller to play games that require very frequent input.

Same issue when I tried to play a game through GeForce Now on my Chromecast. The game kept frosing (the app itself froze, while the game was running in background), unplayable too.

So yeah, unless you have a powerful device to run these apps (like a computer or a console), it's not that convenient.
 
El Muerto said:
I sometimes play the free with prime games on there. It's actually pretty good. I never experienced any latency on my fire cube v2 over ethernet. Better experience than gamepass. But i wouldnt throw money on it. If you have prime claim all those GOG games. There's a decent amount of GOG games you can stream in Luna.

Games available on Amazon Luna | GOG.COM

Download the best classic and new games on Windows, Mac & Linux. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies and 30-day money-back guarantee.
www.gog.com www.gog.com
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That's actually how I ended up here lol a few months ago I randomly added some free games from GOG but never played them then last night I was going through my TV apps & decided to try Luna because I remembered that I added some games to the account & surprisingly it worked great using one of my old PS4 controllers.
 
Baemono said:
The issue is rarely the service itself, rather how you access it. The convenience is in theory.

Like for xCloud on Fire TV. My Fire TV sweats when I turn it on, takes ages to load any app, and its bluetooth isn't the best. I don't see myself plugging it a controller to play games that require very frequent input.

Same issue when I tried to play a game through GeForce Now on my Chromecast. The game kept frosing (the app itself froze, while the game was running in background), unplayable too.

So yeah, unless you have a powerful device to run these apps (like a computer or a console), it's not that convenient.
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I'm running it directly on my LG TV
 
Animated GIF
 
I think it's awesome that they partnered with GOG to put games on the service, but then GOG won't put their own heavy hitters on Luna. Which is strange because you have to own the game in the first place, so its not like GOG is giving the games away for fee. It makes me think GOG nor Amazon has much faith in Luna. You would expect more from a giant such as Amazon but's is pretty weak. Luna will probably be shut down in a year or two.
 
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I keep forgetting it exists and has free games via Prime. Not even sure if AppleTV devices i use have a Luna app.

I've had pretty good cloud experiences in general. I recently found out there's a free tier to the GeForce one too. I never looked into it cause I thought none of it was free.
 
There was recently a letter from a former Amazon VP on linkedin....that was some good read. ;)

Finally, we built "Luna," a game streaming service that let people play without a high-end PC. Around the same time, Google tried the same thing with their product "Stadia." Neither gained significant traction. The whole time, Steam dominated despite being a relatively small company (compared to Amazon and Google).
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The mistake was that we underestimated what made consumers use Steam.It was a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy case all in one. And it worked well.
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At Amazon, we assumed that size and visibility would be enough to attract customers, but we underestimated the power of existing user habits. We never validated our core assumptions before investing heavily in solutions. The truth is that gamers already had the solution to their problems, and they weren't going to switch platforms just because a new one was available.
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onQ123 said:
The last part doesn't really make sense because this isn't trying to get people to switch from another Platform but be for people who don't have the other platforms.
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Every 10year old has a laptop nowadays...or at least should have. ;)
 
The biggest competitor of Xbox
"When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward," - Phil spencer
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Which makes sense when you think about it.
 
onQ123 said:
Not exactly because a kid without a console can hook up any Bluetooth controller to his smart TV & start playing Fortnite
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Maybe they've improved it, but the few times I tried to play Fortnite on it, it lagged quite badly and just looked awful. Looked like lowest settings possible.
 
They have put some pretty decent games on it with Prime Gaming. I used it to demo a few like Ys IX and it worked fine. Would I buy a game on it? No.

I do think eventually on a long enough timeline the global internet infrastructure will be so good that streaming games will be good enough for most gamers, and dedicated hardware will be for sickos only like high end audio equipment.
 
Baemono said:
The issue is rarely the service itself, rather how you access it. The convenience is in theory.

Like for xCloud on Fire TV. My Fire TV sweats when I turn it on, takes ages to load any app, and its bluetooth isn't the best. I don't see myself plugging it a controller to play games that require very frequent input.

Same issue when I tried to play a game through GeForce Now on my Chromecast. The game kept frosing (the app itself froze, while the game was running in background), unplayable too.

So yeah, unless you have a powerful device to run these apps (like a computer or a console), it's not that convenient.
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If your Fire TV is struggling to load any app. It sounds like it might be a few years old and outdated. You spend $15 and buy a new Fire Stick and fix all those issues. Or use the Luna app on any other device.

No idea on GeForce Now. It's no different that watching a Netflix or YouTube stream expect you also have controls. But maybe you have issues with your Internet connection. You don't need a PC or console. It's just decoding a video stream, there's nothing magic or different about it.
 
SScorpio said:
If your Fire TV is struggling to load any app. It sounds like it might be a few years old and outdated. You spend $15 and buy a new Fire Stick and fix all those issues. Or use the Luna app on any other device.

No idea on GeForce Now. It's no different that watching a Netflix or YouTube stream expect you also have controls. But maybe you have issues with your Internet connection. You don't need a PC or console. It's just decoding a video stream, there's nothing magic or different about it.
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Apparently it was a known issue that was fixed.

Yeah my Fire TV is pretty old. I bought a Shield TV (2019) since, but same issue, it's laggy. Can't use PS Play app without having sutterings.

Android + slow SoC isn't the best combination
 
Baemono said:


Apparently it was a known issue that was fixed.

Yeah my Fire TV is pretty old. I bought a Shield TV (2019) since, but same issue, it's laggy. Can't use PS Play app without having sutterings.

Android + slow SoC isn't the best combination
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The Shield is a slow SoC. It's a higher clocked version of what's in the Switch. I don't have a PS Sub, but GeForce Now, and Luna work great on the Shield. GeForce Now looks better with Luna being a softer image. But that's down to the encoding and resolution being used. Both are stable and aren't any different what streaming off a console or PC locally.
 
Accoriding to Grok:
Amazon Luna is a viable contender in the off-console/cloud gaming battlefield, particularly for casual players and Prime loyalists. It's not unseating Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now anytime soon, but its AWS backbone, Twitch integration, and accessibility give it staying power. To climb higher, Luna needs a bigger library, broader reach, and a clearer identity—otherwise, it risks remaining a useful but unremarkable sidekick in a crowded fight.

From my point of view, this whole "Cloud Gaming" thing, as far as I can see, will trigger another major consolidation in maybe 10–15 years (if not 20). A consolidation similar to the one that just happened. And Sony will be the winner again. Arrogant Sony will not be stopped.

The Portal (something that a lot of us thought was going to flop) has proven to be a surprising success. Think about it: the Portal was something that "Xbox futurists" were dreaming about and actively talking about: "Cloud gaming is the future, and Xbox has infinite resources" to pull it off. Yet, Sony (just a little startup in comparison) beat them to it (including Amazon and Nvidia).

But of course, Amazon. Nvidia and MS are not really gaming companies. Play Station is.

So, I think Cloud will be a great complement of any given ecosystem. And given that Play Station has the strongest ecosystem, brand penetration and marketing powerhouse, it will remain the market leader in cloud too.

Nvidia with GeForce has become the de facto cloud experience on PC, thanks to its integration with Steam...can wee see it on Nintendo too?

Xcloud has the edge over Luna just because of ABK/Zenimax and XGS games. so, yeah. Luna stands under XCloud.
 
It works pretty much flawlessly at this point. The main thing to keep in mind is that you absolutely need to have 5ghz WiFi. Luna does not work well at all with 2.4ghz.
 
StereoVsn said:
It's an absolutely irrelevant. Unless Amazon makes some deals to stream Xbox, PSN, Steam, EGS, etc. games. Nobody sane will buy games on this service (is they even possible?).
Click to expand...
This feature is pretty cool:

Unlike Steam, you own games on GOG and can play some of them on Luna...
 
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Fat Frog said:
This feature is pretty cool:

Unlike Steam, you own games on GOG and can play some of them on Luna...
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's actually pretty cool.

Edit: I need to test it out. Have like 500 games on GoG, although most are 20+ year old.
 
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Fat Frog said:
This feature is pretty cool:

Unlike Steam, you own games on GOG and can play some of them on Luna...
Click to expand...

It also supports (some?) Ubisoft games. I assume that you can buy games and either install on your own computer or play through Luna. I use heroic launcher for any of the free Amazon games so don't have any experience of their launcher and whether you can buy games there.
 
StereoVsn said:
Yeah, that's actually pretty cool.

Edit: I need to test it out. Have like 500 games on GoG, although most are 20+ year old.
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Yeah, library is growing. It's the best of both world: Owning games + use them almost everywhere from a crappy laptop...

This alliance is far better than Stadia or Xcloud, playcloud something...

poppabk poppabk
Yeah, Ubisoft games could also be included.

With Prime you can also play different games every months
 
Until Microsoft puts their Frankenstein Xbox servers in every datacenter around the country, including backwater places (Netflix already does this with their OCA devices) the experience as it relates to stream quality and input lag will always be DOODY.
 
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