Stop me if you've heard this before; but a big company waltz's into the gaming industry, slams it's manhood down on the table and announces it's the next big thing. No, I'm not doing an erotic retelling of the Microsoft-Bethesda deal, I'm talking about Amazon joining the fight for gaming supremacy in the very near future. Within the next year Amazon will be coming out with their new game streaming service in order to rival the likes of GeForce Now, Microsoft's X-Cloud and... I guess Google Stadia, but that service doesn't really need to be rivalled, now does it? And I have to say, hearing this my very first thought, quite literally the first thing that came to mind, was "Oh, they haven't done that already?" It's like hearing that Final Fantasy is getting it's sixteenth entry finally, you just find yourself confused that they haven't already made a sixteenth game. (In which you would be right, FF XVI is like the 40th entry when counting all the side games and spin-offs.) Amazon crossing the Rubicon like this was only a matter of time, the question is whether or not they can make a big enough splash to make an impression for themselves in the wide ocean of the gaming world.
Now, streaming services get a bad wrap, at least within the world of gaming, and that partially comes from a certain amount of mistrust and lacking communication. When we hear about Google making it's way to us with a whole new service, one needs merely to look at the graveyard of Google services to conclude that this is hardly a serious effort and thus can be easily overlooked. And when a streaming service is announced without making it abundantly clear where falls important issues like software ownership rights and the platforms on which those games are kept, the marketing team is going to run afoul of the gamers who are cognizant to those sorts of issues. (Which, fyi, are a lot of them.) As it exists right now, there is no single streaming service that offers the correct amount of features to be a feasible replacement for a gamer's set-up, especially not a PC gamer. And in some ways that opens the field for a new competitor to step in, and in other ways it highlights just how early this tech is if even these titans can't manage to get the job done.
Then again, we are talking about Amazon here, so when it comes to dealing with folk with the technology and capital to change the face of gaming, there really is no need to look any further. Google may be big, but they rarely have the faith in their side projects to put in their weight behind them, but Amazon on the otherhand have enough money to put their weight behind any slight fancy. Want to start a TV-streaming service? They got it done. Want to implement a drone delivery service? They are actively working on wide-spread distribution of that. Want to fund a rocket to Mars? I'll bet they're planning to announce their Space-X competitor before the year is out. (Hey, stranger things have happened!) So when I hear that Amazon want's to start a game streaming service, I'm willing to concede that it could work out for them, depending on how they spin it.
Luna, is the name of this new streaming competitor, named after our dear old natural satellite up there. (Although if I wear Amazon I would really lean into the gamer angle, partner up with Square Enix and try to spin this as a direct reference to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, gamer's love that pandering stuff!) The service will be available through the Amazon fire TV and can be used through a controller that they sell or any other controller you have lying around. (Which is great because the controller they sell is so close to the Xbox controller it's a wonder that no patents were infringed.) Right now it is available only in the US as a sort of trial run, but I would be interested to see how this thing picks up once that net gets wider. Unlike with Google Stadia the barrier to entry with this service is supremely low, from a cost perspective, and they promise to provide games without having to buy them individually. (A huge step up from the Stadia.)
What's more, Amazon have even gone the extra step of straight up stealing Google's ideas, such as teasing some sort of Twitch integration whereupon you can see a game then beam it right to the TV. Of course, such a feature has yet to even show up on Stadia so this could be some more 'overly optimistic developer' speak, but I'm sure that seamless integration will pop up on both services one day. (No Man's Sky finally got those Giant sandworms the otherday, so if they can get it done there must be hope for anyone!) Although, to be honest, I do wonder just how much these gimmicks will really change the way content is viewed. Afterall, viewing gameplay is an inherently passive action, I for one couldn't be bothered to get out a controller when I just want to sit down and watch someone else do it. Also there's the question of how that will effect the viewing in general, as Twitch Streams are much more dependant on concurrent viewership than Youtube's pre-recorded videos are. I may by thinking about this a little too hard, but I wonder if Amazon are getting a little ahead of themselves in this regard.
What I cannot criticize however, is the cost of their premium service which is said to provide multiple devices, 4k Streaming and only go for $5 a month. I'd imagine this will be the service behind which all the brand new games that are coming to the service will launch. (As Ubisoft have already loaned out it's fresh franchises to this new hotness; they're desperate at this point to lead this charge into streaming.) Right now this price point is a lot more palatable than Google's $10 (Which only gives you a discount for purchasing games, least you forget) and if they can build it into a mini version of Xbox Game Pass, maybe with a smaller rotation of games coming through, Amazon could really strongly cement themselves in the gaming ecosystem. Imagine being a smaller indie developer that gets their game in the rotation of the Amazon Luna Plus game's model, that'd be game changing! Of course, this is merely speculation for their future plans, for all we know they could be planning to flush everything down the toilet just like Stadia has.
Of course, I have my reservations about another Streaming service entering gaming. Firstly, the space is already crowded as all heck, at this point it's only a matter of time before that accursed word 'exclusivity' starts getting tossed around and everything descends into the same tribalism that pollutes the console world. Secondly, and this more of a personal gripe, I don't trust Amazon. It's not that I don't trust them to run this service, far from it, I just don't trust them as a tech megacorporation. They're already experts at mining all of our data in order to sell products, now with direct access to gaming habits who knows what they could find out? I'm only marginally more okay with Google because I know their algorithm is so general and dumb that it's been convinced I'm some sort of budding entrepreneurial investor type for the last 6 months. (That is so inconceivably wrong I don't even know what to make of it.) And finally, Amazon has a reputation for attempting to ruin the industries that it enters, I think it's a miracle of timing that TV streaming hasn't been gobbled up by them yet. The gaming industry is full of cheap and ugly ways to wring money out from under us, and I'll bet that, if left unchecked, within a year Amazon will be rivalling EA for the title of 'biggest greedy monster in the industry'.
At the end of the day, or rather today, it's a little too early to get the measure of Amazon Luna quite yet. We still haven't ensured they've correctly built the infrastructure to run any of the things that they're promising. (Something which Google famously struggled with) However seeing them start with a 'soft launch' in America is a promising step to imply that they are doing things right and taking the steady steps that they need to. Such is certainly in their best interest, for all it takes is one colossal screw up on their end to seriously damage their reputation before it's even managed to set itself. (Gamers can be unforgiving like that sometimes) I know I'm a little early on this one, but I wanted to really 'ground floor' this one to get it's measure as best as I could. I suppose the first impressions of the next few weeks will really let us know if we have a new competitor to the gaming world, or just another embarrassing fart that'll fizzle out before Christmas.
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