With two new physical gaming consoles less than a month and a half away from release, Amazon announces Luna, a new paid game streaming service aimed at allowing subscribers to play PC games remotely on computers, phones, and tablets. It’s sort of like Stadia with a slightly better controller.
By subscribing to Amazon Luna, now accepting sign-ups for early access at the introductory price of $5.99 per month, players gain access to a curated library of PC games called the Luna+ game channel. Games will be playable across a broad range of devices, including Fire TV, PC and Mac, and iOS devices (via a web-based app that bypasses Apple’s app store, via Engadget), with Android support available in the coming weeks.
Titles expected to be playable during early access on the Luna+ game channel include Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2, Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair, Iconoclasts, GRID, ABZU, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and more.
Amazon also announced the first of many additional channels, the Ubisoft channel, which will include a selection of older Ubisoft games as well as day one access to new games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. No word yet on how much subscriptions to additional channels, including Ubisoft’s, will cost.
The coolest aspect of the service is the Luna controller. Instead of connecting to the device the player is playing on, it connects directly to Amazon’s cloud, lowering latency and allowing for fancy tricks like instantly swapping games between screens without losing control. That’s a cool innovation.
Correction 9/24 4:15 PM: It’s been pointed out to me that this is the same way Google’s Stadia controller works, so maybe not so innovative.
The service will also be integrated with Twitch. Folks watching a game being played will be able to launch Luna games directly from Twitch, while Luna game pages will prominently feature streams of games in progress.
The rest sounds very Stadia: Unlimited play, some games will eventually be able to run in 4K, instant play via remote servers ... we know this drill. If you’re interested in giving it a go, early access sign-ups for Luna are live now on Amazon’s landing page.