Amazon Luna Isn't Solving Cloud Gaming's Biggest Problems - Gizmodo

There are big problems with cloud gaming and Luna so far isn’t poised to solve any of them.

Ubisoft will have its own games channel on Luna at launch, where future users will find Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and Far Cry 6 released on the same day they’re released on other platforms..

As of now, Amazon has no major exclusives.

And when Stadia was still in its testing phase, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was the game beta testers played. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla will be on Stadia at release, too.

Sure, Stadia doesn’t have a dedicated Ubisoft channel like Amazon’s Luna, but you can still play Assassin’s Creed and other Ubisoft games on nearly every platform, even GeForce Now.

Ubisoft has its own channel on Luna, but are game developers raving about the tools they can use to make games.

Amazon does own Lumberyard, a game engine that integrates with Amazon Web Services, so it’s possible they could get a small game exclusive or two to start like Stadia did with the game Gylt.

In 2009, it launched a digital game store that was mostly filled with casual games, but it grew to incorporate games from major publishers and developers.

There wasn’t a need to buy games from Amazon unless it was a casual game, and even then Google Play and Apple’s App Store were already around.

According to van Dreunen, unless Amazon is willing to spend $5 to $10 billion over the next two years to acquire exclusive content it could take Luna several years to catch on as a gaming platform.

Luna doesn’t have anything special to offer that isn’t already offered by Stadia or another gaming platform right now.

Does that mean Amazon won’t become a big player in the gaming industry.

But ultimately, Luna’s success won’t be determined by how well its controller works, how many platforms support it, or even how many games it has.

To some extent, the number of games matters only if there are a lot of major and diverse titles, but cloud gaming as it’s envisioned can only take off if we have the infrastructure for it.

And if the times spent fighting over net neutrality and expanding affordable, reliable internal to urban and rural locations haven’t been telling enough, it’s going to be a long time before we have the infrastructure for cloud gaming to become a major platform.

For anyone who doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a console, or even thousands on a PC, cloud gaming is the way to go, especially as more games, major and indie alike, find homes on these platforms.

So while cloud gaming remains out of reach for many, Amazon has to bring something new to the table to make Luna seem exciting.