For those who might recall from earlier this past April, Amazon was planning to kick off its own game streaming service somewhere during the halfway mark of 2020. Dubbed ‘Project Tempo’ at the time, the new platform would stand as a competitor to Google’s Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud services with integration with Amazon subsidiary Twitch. However, complications under the stress of COVID-19 pushed the service to a later release.
Now today, Amazon officially announces its new service, Luna. Set to arrive in the form of early access for next month with a flat fee of $5.99 a month, players will be able to enjoy a catalogue of titles available through the new platform. Howbeit, unlike its named competitors, Luna will be launching on Amazon-powered devices and iOS with an Android version scheduled to follow in the weeks after.
As for why that is, Amazon shared with Engadget that the game’s unique release on Apple is more than its agreement with Apple, but instead on how the service is approached on the platform. Categorized as a progressive web application (PWA), Luna is a client installed from the internet and recognized as an app on iOS which negates Amazon from being hit with the 30 percent cut that refrains Microsoft & Google from launching its services on iOS.
“Just to be super transparent, on iOS, it is through the browser. So it’s not a native app in the App Store,” Luna leading executive Marc Whitten shares on the matters.
“We worked with the Safari team to ensure that some of the things that weren’t there are there, and that allowed us to kind of get to where we are today,” George Tsipolitis, Luna head of Engineering and Technology explained to Engadget.
As for the games that will be offered on Luna, it is told that a selection of titles like Control, Metro Exodus, Overcooked 2, and Resident Evil 7 will be included. However, there will also be featured channels which categorize titles from specific publishers for players to skim through. Currently, the only known channel is one for Ubisoft which will include Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. Pricing on the aforementioned channel implementation has yet to be disclosed.
Told by Luna Business Development Manager Lisa Schwenke, the service will offer “more [games] than Stadia, less than Game Pass.” Luna is framed to launch next month with roughly 100 different titles for players to indulge in. During its launch, Amazon plans to offer a separate, higher-priced Luna+ subscription which will bundle a selection of titles to play. Schwenke estimates about 50 titles will be bundled in the package from Amazon.
She continued by explaining that the remainder of titles will be found in the Ubisoft channel – about 50 games. Back to Whitten, he also adds that there will also be “genre-based channel[s]” that will be added later on when Luna 1.0 hits the market. As for the service’s Twitch integration, it will stand similarly to Stadia allowing viewers to click a link and play if already a Luna subscriber. Game pages will also feature streams of those playing the respected software.
For those interested to tap into the early access phase of Luna, You can sign-up by heading here. What are you most interested by Amazon’s Luna service so far?
Luna is set to fully arrive sometime in 2021 to PC, Mac, Fire TV, iOS, and iPadOS.
Source: Engadget
