Is Amazon’s Luna Ready to compete with xCloud? Industry Analyst Shares his Views

The Cloud Gaming space now has a new addition in the form of Amazon’s Luna. The E-commerce giant announced this service a couple of days ago and looks all set to take on the likes of Microsoft, PlayStation Now, Google Stadia, and Nvidia’s GeForce Now.

Out of all these names, it seems like Luna will be in direct competition with Google’s Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud service. Now the question remains, will it be able to sustain the competition?

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Google has honestly not been very successful with Stadia as it had constant issues with its interface. Although, it seems Microsoft has learned from Google’s mistakes and has managed to perfect the cloud gaming experience. Amazon is also not too far behind with this, considering even they got to learn from Stadia’s mistakes. So where does this put Luna against Microsoft and the others?

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To answer this question, popular industry analyst Daniel Ahmad took to Twitter to express his views on the topic.

“One question about Amazon Luna is- Who is this cloud game service for? If we presume the answer is core gamers, given the selection of games available, then I feel those gamers are better served right now by offerings from Microsoft, Sony and Nvidia for the following reasons:

“The services above currently view cloud gaming as an extension of traditional local play. They integrate with existing game libraries and ecosystems that core gamers are already in. They (with the exception of Nvidia) have exclusive content to acquire / retain users.”

He also had a couple of more points to add to this.

Amazon’s Luna has an uphill task of competing with Microsoft

All these points make a very valid argument both for and against Amazon’s Luna. The e-commerce giant may have found tremendous success with its streaming platform Twitch, but cloud gaming is a whole different ball game. Sure, Amazon has tons of cash and money to sustain it, but given the fact that it is going up against someone like Microsoft, they really need to buckle up.

Microsoft’s latest Bethesda acquisition also makes it a more attractive alternative. With the entire library of EA also making its way to the Game Pass, it is likely that Microsoft will emerge as the superior one in the cloud gaming space. Although, this doesn’t rule out its competitors entirely.

The shift towards a subscription-based model in the gaming industry means more competition, exclusives, etc. for every platform. This is almost exactly like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. where each platform has something different to offer while keeping certain generic titles intact. This completion will benefit the end-users eventually, and they will be the real winners here. The future of gaming is not only going to be more inclusive but also extremely sustainable in terms of price.