What is Amazon Luna?
Amazon has announced its own cloud streaming service for games, called Luna. The counter to the services offered by Microsoft’s xCloud, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and Google Stadia is coming storming onto the scene. Amazon is storming with games offered for a variety of devices with full support for HD gaming with a variety of controllers. You won’t have to buy some cheap knock-off with this one. Although yes, Amazon Luna does have a branded controller.
Amazon described it as “Luna is a cloud gaming service that lets you play games on compatible Fire TV, PC, and Mac devices as well as through web apps on iPhones and iPad.” Sounds really good right? Having access to high-end gaming that’s cross-compatible Fire TV, PC, and Mac devices is pretty sweet, depending on price. The service has a Plus Channel service which costs $5.99 per month, and gives premium access to the game library.
The service is powered by Amazon calls Cloud Direct, which they claim helps optimize content delivery to reduce latency and keep the games playing quick and lag-free. The service uses Wi-Fi to boost network signal strength and reduce the potential for latency. It’s also integrated with Amazon’s Alexa service, meaning that players can press a button and have Alexa commands be prompted.
The Luna service is only available by invitation at the moment, but you can request early access here.
Amazon Luna Supported controllers
The list of Amazon Luna supported devices and controllers is very simple. The Luna Controller is the branded option offered for the service, and being a USB controller, should work on any other platform, like Xbox One of PS4. The Luna controller costs $49.99. The service also supports the Xbox controller, mouse and keyboard, and Sony’s DualShock 4.
Games List
There’s a lot of games coming for the launch. It certainly looks like Amazon wants to avoid the problem Google Stadia slammed into with too few games at launch. A good mix of indie and AAA titles are seen, giving Amazon the chance to flex some muscle. If they can mitigate latency issues common to cloud gaming, they could be a real contender. Some of those AAA releases include Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Resident Evil 7, and Control.
The general consensus seems to be that around 100 games will be on the cloud gaming service when it drops. Here’s the list of games on Amazon Luna:
- A Plague Tale: Innocence
- Abzu
- AO Tennis 2
- Aragami
- Blasphemous
- BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
- Blazing Chrome
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
- Castlevania Anniversary Collection
- Contra Anniversary Collection
- Control
- CrossCode
- Deponia Doomsday
- DiRT Rally 2.0
- Everspace
- Furi
- Ghost of a Tale
- Goodbye Deponia
- Grid
- Hard Reset Redux
- Iconoclasts
- Indivisible
- Infinite Minigolf
- Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth
- Lumines Remastered
- Metro Exodus
- Mighty Switch Force! Collection
- Obduction
- Overcooked! 2
- Panzer Dragoon Remake
- Paper Beast
- R-Type Dimensions EX
- Redout: Solar Challenge Edition
- Resident Evil 7
- Rez Infinite
- Rime
- River City Girls
- The Sexy Brutale
- Shadow Tactics
- Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – Ultimate Edition
- Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut
- Sonic Mania Plus
- Star Wars Pinball
- SteamWorld Dig
- SteamWorld Dig 2
- SteamWorld Heist: Ultimate Edition
- SteamWorld Quest
- Super Mega Baseball 3
- The Surge
- The Surge 2
- Sythentik: Legion Rising
- Tacoma
- Tangledeep
- Tennis World Tour 2
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
- Thimbleweed Park
- Valfaris
- Victor Vran: Overkill Edition
- Wonder Boy: The Dragon Trap
- XIII
- Yoku’s Island Express
- Yooka-Laylee
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
- Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Supported Devices
Here’s the full list of devices with Luna support as provided by Amazon:
- PC (requires Windows 10 with DirectX 11 support)
- Mac (requires OSX 10.13 or later)
- Fire TV devices:
- Fire TV Stick (second gen or newer)
- Fire TV Stick 4K
- Fire TV Cube (second gen)
- iPhone (iOS 14)
- iPad (iOS 14)
There is definitely some weird quirks here. The first-generation Fire TV devices aren’t supported for one thing. This is likely due to some technical limitations with those devices. Amazon has provided a support page for the Fire TV devices to help users figure out what they have on hand, if they’re not already aware.