Move over Google, there’s another tech giant looking to get into videogame streaming. On Thursday, Amazon announced their new cloud gaming service, Luna, and began accepting requests for early access to the service.
“We created Luna to make it easy to play great games on the devices customers already own and love,” said Marc Whitten, Vice President, Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services. “It’s Day One for Luna—we are excited to work with gamers, streamers, and publishers like Ubisoft and Remedy Entertainment to build a great gaming experience for everyone.”
Luna allows users to play a library of games across multiple devices like PC, Mac, Fire TV, smartphones and tablets without needing to download them. Subscribers will also be able to start playing a game on one device and seamlessly transition to playing on another.
The service is currently comprised of two channels, Luna+ and a Ubisoft channel. The Luna+ channel offers a library of games including Resident Evil 7 and Overcooked! 2 for a monthly subscription fee. The Ubisoft channel will give subscribers access to a selection of Ubisoft titles including new titles like Immortals Fenyx Rising the day they release.
Luna also features Twitch integration and will show streams for games in the service as well as allowing customers to instantly play games they are watching. A Luna controller was also announced, making use of Amazon’s Alexa to allow players to use voice commands to launch games.
Amazon touted Luna’s leveraging of Amazon Web Services to increase the quality of videogames streamed on the service up to a 4K resolution at 60 fps. It is currently unclear if the service will allow customers to purchase games outright, or only subscribe to games collected into channels.
Amazon is entering a relatively crowded space in terms of competitors. Google Stadia launched last year, with few early adopters. Microsoft offers a similar videogame subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, which recently reached 15 million subscribers thanks in part to its robust and expanding game library that subscribers can play across multiple devices.
Nicolas Perez is an editorial intern at Paste and opinion co-editor for New University. He’s rambling on Twitter @Nic_Perez_.