Amazon on September 24th launched its own gaming cloud service called “Luna”. The long rumor has finally come to an end. This means Amazon is into the cloud gaming on rival with Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia Geforce. We all have heard about Google’s gaming cloud “Stadia”, Microsoft’s gaming cloud “Game Pass Ultimate” also known as “XCloud”. All these are still under beta versions and are available in only some parts of the world. Nvidia also has got its “Geforce Now” into beta this February.
Amazon Luna is no different from the rivals it can be played on Laptops, PCs, Mobiles, FireTV literally anything that can be connected to the internet and has a screen. A “Luna Plus” subscription of $5.99 per month as part of an invite-only early access program. A separate control is available for 50$ which is similar to the regular X-Box controller. Even without the controller from amazon, you can use the regular X-Box controller or PlayStation controller or a keyboard and mouse.
Luna will be running on Amazon’s AWS server which will stream up to 1080p at 60 FPS at launch. Amazon teases that 4K support will be coming soon to Luna. Ubisoft will be the first popular publisher that will bring its library to Luna. Assasin’s creed Valhalla also will be coming soon as no timeline has been mentioned.
Amazon’s Twitch introduced in 2014 for streaming games will be integrated into Luna to stream games while playing. Amazon says that all those watching Twitch with a subscription can go from watching to playing in Luna.
Connection Speed and Games:
The minimum recommended internet speed is 10Mbps for streaming games on Luna, with 35Mbps you can play 4K games. Amazon lists some games that will be available in early access these include:
- Control
- Resident Evil 7
- Yooka-Laylee
- The Impossible Lair
- A Plague Tale: Innocence
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
- GRID
Hardware & Software:
Amazon Luna unlike others will be having channels of in which you can subscribe to your favorite channel like cable service. Luna is powered by the Windows servers and Nvidia GPUs. With the use of Windows, it makes developers easy to transfer their games to AWS instance and private cloud streaming access to subscribers. Luna having Windows gives it a great advantage over rivals which makes publishers like Ubisoft to release their digital service(Uplay) on Amazon’s Luna.
Amazon has confirmed to theVerge that it will use Amazon EC2 G4 server instance running Windows, with Nvidia T4 GPUs and Intel Cascade Lake CPUs. A single T4 GPU provides about 8.1 teraflops of performance and support to DirectX raytracing technology.
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Luna will be available on FireTV, Mac, and PC and as web apps on iPhone and iPad. Amazon has found a way around to get to users of iPhone and iPad without getting restrictions from the Apple Store.
So, excited as I am to get hands-on Amazon Luna? Let’s just wait for its stable release and availability in our country. That’s it for now, hope you like the article. Please share this article if you loved reading this. Hope to see you around. Stay home and safe as you don’t have another life like in games. Keep an eye on this space for more updates.