Amazon Luna

[Guest]

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[Maryokutai]

Ah, damn, here I was hoping they'd start shipping from the moon. At, like, half a million bucks per order.

 

This is just Stadia 2.

[mfnick]

Only been in gaming for 5 minutes and already showing Nintendo a thing or 2. Look at that button placement - A, B, X & Y are the correct way round. You love to see it. 
Well done Amazon. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Still think that MS are the only ones who will build any momentum with the game streaming thing

 

For me anyway a major barrier to entry is having a library of games on yet another platform/storefront, with no idea how long the service will be around for it. Stadia is definitely going to die in the next 18 months (feel free to quote this). Luna I don't think will do much better.

 

But MS have got the right ideas for this stuff, from a service point of view anyway by bundling it with gamepass. Not that that fixes the fact that my wifi connection to my router just isn't good enough to play games on but it's a start.

[Guest]

 

 

[Maryokutai]

10 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Luna I don't think will do much better.

 

Depends on how amazon is going to approach this going forward. They could just add it to their Prime offerings (with certain price adjustments maybe, I'm no accountant) and force it down people's throats like they did with Prime TV. They certainly have the means to ease people into it passively whereas Google was hoping that people just actively went to them and tried it for themselves. Which isn't a good starting point for a service like this, particularly when the initial feedback is mostly negative, too.

[Hendo]

Subscription model is much more likely to get me interested than what Google have done. Still boggles my brain that they went that way.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah. I can see it starting as the odd free month to get people interested then it being bundled in. 

[DisturbedSwan]

A sub model is bound to be more popular than Stadia for sure.

 

With Amazon's reach they can really push this if they want to as well.

[Maf]

Also I think it helps they’re launching with more games. Didn’t Stadia launch with only a small amount of games that have been out for ages?

 

I know Amazon have their own game studios as well and it’ll be what they do on the exclusive front to see if it is for me or not. I love Sonic Mania. But I’m not getting this to play it again. 
 

Either that or they need to have a really good Gamepass rivalling subscription service that is getting new games on it very early. 
 

Extreme quality or extreme pricing is the only thing that would get me to consider it, really. 

[Guest]

This looks like a service they’re pushing at people that wouldn’t buy a console where as Stadia wanted to become your console/main squeeze.

 

Yes I said main squeeze. 

[mfnick]

3 hours ago, mmmark said:

This looks like a service they’re pushing at people that wouldn’t buy a console

This I’ve never understood. Same with Stadia. Who are these mythical people who’d be willing to spend £40+ on games like Control but arent already into games and own a console or PC.
 

To appeal to that type of person IMO you really need a subscription model. But even then I struggle to think of anyone who already isn’t into games that would be willing to put the effort required into playing them. It’s not passive like TV and music. Unless they’re a lapsed gamer that may just dip in every now and again. But even then I’m not sure. They act as though there’s this huge untapped market but I just think the majority of people will never be active gamers, it requires too much effort and if it’s not a subscription model - too much money as well. 

[Maf]

I think the prime market for this thing is kids and younger gamers. They stream everything already, they’re all watching Twitch and have their favourite streamers, they’re going to find unique ways to integrate this thing with Twitch, and they’ll be blasted with ads for it nonstop. If you’re talking to younger audiences that don’t have the disposable income but can hook them on a cheap subscription and no more hardware than they’ve already got. Just strap your phone to the controller. In theory there’s a fortune sitting there but I say what I always say if you don’t have the games they won’t come. Amazon seem to already being doing better with having a much larger library of games than Stadia did but they’re still a bunch of games everyone has already played. 
 

I’m not saying this will be a success but right off the bat I think they’ve got a decent library, they’re already got a tuned in potential audience, and if they get the pricing and technology right then I could see this being a thing. They just need a killer game and then all they’re big streamers to play it. 

[mfnick]

Good point, for younger gamers this will be the future I suppose and easier for mum and dad to give access To rather than splurging £250-450 on a console too. Fair enough, some reason didn’t think of that. ?

[DANGERMAN]

It depends, I don't think there's any one group this works for. I can definitely see it being used if it's just part of Prime, but just saying "young gamers" maybe ignores what they play, Fortnite for example. But if Amazon can land one of those hits themselves it will be a success for them. It's the one area Amazon have really struggled though, they can't seem to make a game people are interested in, not yet at least 

 

Not that I think it will be the main way people play or anything, but like a few on here it seems this has got a better chance than what's come before 

[one-armed dwarf]

Tbh I actually think kids and younger games would be even more susceptible to noticing how much poorer response times and image quality are on streams than us old bastards, due to them having better reflexes and better eyeballs.

 

I also still just think the setup of this stuff is more painful than consoles anyway. I tried Destiny 2 and Grid on stadia and on both 2.4ghz and 5 it was absolutely terrible and unplayable. I turned off my phone and all wireless electronics and it was a bit better but come on. Ethernet was the only way it felt good and that's just not practical.

 

I don't see that problem being solved for a very long time as it's impossible to fix on the service side. I can't even watch twitch on low latency mode, I have to put a delay on the stream for it to be viewable without constant cuts. Netflix and spotify don't have this as a problem but gaming always will have to deal with it in some form.