When you observe the gaming industry for long enough, you notice that everything moves in cycles and trends. Whenever one major tech company announces some new big, alleged game-changer, everyone and their grandma suddenly wants a piece of the pie, even before that first thing comes out. NVIDIA has GeForce Now, Microsoft is still figuring out Project xCloud, Google really wants Stadia to be a thing, and Amazon has Luna. But what exactly is Amazon Luna?
What is Amazon Luna?
Amazon Luna is a cloud gaming service designed to allow you to stream games to your compatible device over an internet connection, as opposed to downloading and installing the whole thing and storing it on a hard drive. Luna can be run through any device connected to a high-speed internet service, including PC, Mac, sufficiently powerful mobile devices, and even an Amazon Fire TV stick.Â
Accessing the Luna framework itself is free, but to play games, you need a Luna+ subscription, which currently costs $5.99 a month during their early access period. With a Luna+ subscription, you get unlimited access to the Luna game library, which includes such notable games as Control, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and Resident Evil 7, all at 1080p and 60 fps quality (with 4k quality to come later). You can also stream games from up to two devices at a time. You can also use Amazon Luna with an Ubisoft+ subscription, which includes all of the features of Luna+, but is limited to streaming on one device at a time.
Of course, not all internet connections are made equal, so if your internet isn’t up to snuff, you may have difficulty streaming games at a steady framerate, though recently, Amazon updated Luna to allow users to lower graphical quality and improve stability. It is still in early access, after all, so hopefully, with a little more stress testing, they’ll have some smoother servers.
There’s also a special Luna controller you can buy off Amazon that features Alexa integration, but you can also play on Luna with an Xbox One controller, a DualShock 4 controller, or a mouse and keyboard.
You can request an invitation to Luna’s early access period from the Amazon Luna website.
