Luna

Today, at Amazon’s hardware event, the company announced several new products including a brand-new game streaming service called Luna. You can read about the new hardware announced here in Leonard’s blog post.

The announcement of Amazon’s new cloud gaming service came as a surprise to many. Previously known as Project Tempo, Luna is similar to other cloud gaming services such as Stadia. It allows you to play your favourite games on the devices you already own.

Let’s take a deeper look at the information released by Amazon today!

Streaming games from the cloud with Amazon Luna 

Luna is designed for instant play and is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). There is no need to wait for installs or updates and you never have to worry if you have enough storage space for your games. As expected, Twitch is heavily integrated into Luna and allows you to stream your gameplay to the service with ease as well as allows you to watch other streams.

Additionally, you can play Luna using a Bluetooth controller such as an Xbox One or DualShock 4 controller, mouse and keyboard, or the Luna Controller. As with the Stadia controller, the Luna Controller gives you the best experience as it directly connects to the cloud to offer low latency gaming. As a result, when using the Luna Controller, you can switch between screens effortlessly. And, compared to a Bluetooth controller, the Luna Controller reduces latency between 17 to 30 milliseconds on Fire TV, PC and Mac.

Amazon recommends internet connection speeds for streaming games to be 10Mbps or higher. And, when 4K streaming is available, you’ll need an internet connection of 35 Mbps or higher. Data usage is estimated to be around 10GB/hr for 1080p streams.

Luna

Games anywhere you want to play

Luna will offer players the ability to subscribe to the Luna+ game channel. It offers a variety of AAA, shooter, racing, RPG, indie games and more to play. Amazon says that there will be over 100 games available to play including Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair, Sonic Mania Plus and more. During early access, Luna+ will cost $5.99 USD a month and more games will be added over time.

Moreover, Luna+ allows unlimited streaming of games on 2 devices at a time with resolutions up to 1080p/60fps. Amazon plans on adding 4K streaming capabilities soon. Furthermore, Amazon announced that a new gaming channel from Ubisoft will be available directly through Luna.

Subscribers to the Ubisoft channel will have access to some of their favourite Ubisoft games and access to new games on day one such as Watch Dogs Legion, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Assassins Creed Valhalla, and Far Cry 6. As with Luna+, you get unlimited streaming of games with resolutions up to 1080p/60fps. Unlike Luna+, streaming games from Ubisoft are limited to 1 device at a time.

Luna

AWS Windows servers powered by Nvidia GPUs

Hardware wise, the Luna servers are running Windows powered by Intel Cascade Lake CPUs and Nvidia’s T4 GPUs. This particular Nvidia GPU provides 8.1 teraflops of performance and support DirectX raytracing. What this means is, developers can with relative ease port their code over to Luna. And, they can get games up and running on the service fairly easy.

How do these hardware specs compare to other cloud gaming services? Stadia servers run on Linux and are using custom Intel x86 processors and AMD GPUs that are capable of 10.7 teraflops. And, Xbox’s Project xCloud is running on Xbox One S hardware capable of 1.4 teraflops.

Regardless of hardware specs, it all comes down to ease of use and availability of games. And, at this point, it looks like Amazon is off to a great start.

Luna

Amazon Luna looks to make a splash into the realm of cloud gaming this October

Luna launches into early access around the beginning of October. It will be available for Fire TV, PC, Mac, web apps on iPhone and iPad, and Android support is coming soon. At this time it is unknown if you will be able to purchase games on Luna. Or, if it will be subscription based only like Netflix. Out of the gate it looks like Luna will have plenty of games for players across a variety of genres along with support from some big third party publishers.

Currently, Luna is only available in the continental United States via early access invitation. Shortly after today’s announcement, I contacted Amazon to see when Luna might be available in other countries such as Canada. The official response I was given was “We don’t have anything to share on that today except to say we are working hard to make all of the features and devices announced today available everywhere our customers want them.”.

Let me know what you think about Amazon Luna in the comments section below. Would you be willing to give this cloud gaming streaming service a try when it comes to Canada?

Click here to see the full line of video game software available at Bestbuy.ca
Click here to see digital video game downloads offered at BestBuy.ca

Luna

Jon Scarr
Jon Scarr
Jon is the Gaming Editor and is based in Toronto. He is a proud Canadian who has a serious passion for gaming. He is a veteran of the video game and tech industry with over 20 years experience. You can often find Jon streaming the latest games on his YouTube channel. Jon loves to talk about gaming and tech, come say hi and join the conversation with Jon on Threads @4ScarrsGaming and @4Scarrsgaming on Instagram.
Instagram Youtube

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

20 COMMENTS

  2. Great article. I’m interested in trying it out, and compare it among the other cloud gaming platforms.
    This article answered some questions that I had.

    Thanks!

  3. I’m still not completely sold on cloud gaming, but I’m interested to find out more about this product. So many companies seem to be getting into the gaming market lately.

    Controller button layout looks like it is getting more standardized too. Luna, Xbox and Switch all seem to be following a similar button layout.

    Thanks Jon, I will be sure to check out more about the Amazon Luna.

  4. Honestly thinking I will use this as a cheap demo service. If there’s a game I wanna try, I’ll pay $5.99 for the channel and then cancel and buy on another platform. Can’t see myself paying monthly though… interesting.

  7. What a fantastic article (AS USUAL) Jon. I am very much excited for Luna’s emergence in the cloud space. Now we will finally see who has the best road map for the next 5 years.

    • Hi

      I agree with you that Jon’s articles continue to impress! We’ll be sure to update this article as we learn more about Luna and its availability in Canada.

      best regards,
      Martin

  8. Luna sounds interesting. I like the idea of having different channels like Ubisoft is doing. I’ll be able to play all their new games for one monthly price. It will be a big savings not having to pay $90 for each game. When does Luna come to Canada again? Will Best Buy sell Luna controllers?

    • Hi Fleury,
      We don’t have much information about the Canadian availability of Luna or Luna controllers yet. When that info comes to us we’ll be sure to update this article and also announce it on Twitter – you can follow me @socialitebooks and Jon @4Scarrs_gaming to stay informed about Best Buy gaming articles and more.

      Best regards,
      Martin

  9. I really wasn’t into game streaming but Luna sounds like it would be the right fit for me. Amazon if you are watching, please bring Luna to Canada us Canadians can’t wait !!

    • Tanmay,

      I’m glad to see that you are excited for Luna. I don’t have any information as to when it will come to Canada but I hope we see it sometime in early 2021. You can bet I’ll have a blog article up with my impressions when it does land. Keep a watch on the blog for future news on Luna.

  10. This announcement came out of nowhere! Luna sounds like a dream come true for game streaming. I like that it’s easy for developers to bring their games over. I sure hope Amazon brings Luna to Canada soon!

  12. I didn’t really hear much of this feels like it came out of nowhere. Competition is good it looks interesting for sure

  15. I’m interested to see how this change things in the future, with Game Pass as stacked as it is and Stadia just barely lukewarm a good competitor for Microsoft is needed here. It will make cloud gaming better no matter the outcome.

Comments are closed.