The General Manager of Amazon Luna, George Tsipolitis, has left Amazon after nine years with the company. According to his recently updated LinkedIn profile, he is joining Netflix as its Senior Director of Engineering for Gaming. While Amazon just launched Luna in more countries a couple of weeks ago and insists it’s still fully behind the cloud gaming service, the recent layoffs that heavily affected the Luna team, the recent loss of many games, and now the loss of the service’s GM has to make you wonder if the service will be around much longer.
Ever since Google shut down its Stadia cloud gaming service, it seems like many have been waiting for Amazon to do the same with Luna. While Stadia launched a year before Luna, both services seemed to be equal in popularity at the end of last year, with less than 5% of the cloud gaming market each. However, what many fail to consider when comparing the two services is their vastly different business models. While Stadia required each individual game to be purchased separately on top of its monthly service fee, Luna charges monthly subscription fees to “Channels” which each contain a large selection of games that can all be played for no additional cost. That key difference may be enough to make Luna successful where Stadia failed.
The loss of its GM is certainly a blow to Amazon Luna but it doesn’t mean the service is dead in the water just yet. The free gaming perks it gives Prime members alone might be enough reason for Amazon to keep it around. On a personal note, I had the pleasure of briefly meeting George Tsipolitis and working with his team during my time at Amazon. Both he and his team displayed a unique passion for what they were creating with Amazon Luna not common among other teams I worked with. It’s a shame for Amazon to be losing him but I wish him the best of luck at Netflix.
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There is a lot of concern here with Amazon’s moves. I got into the Fire TV because it was cost effective to put sticks on every TV, and I could get a recast to stream OTA to every one of those sticks. The launch of Luna simultaneously with Ubisoft+ access secured me. Now they have discontinued the Recast. But promising to maintain security patchs for a few years isn’t going to entice me. And there is no word whatsoever on any kind of replacement. Now Luna has only been pushing out bad news instead of good news and Ubisoft doesn’t seem motived to get its games on Luna either. Settlers: New Allies was supposed to be available weeks ago, yet nobody has said anything and there is no big uproar. Thats BAD! That not means Ubisoft doesn’t care, but Luna users don’t either. The reasons for me to purchase an updated Fire TV device continue to dwindle. It seems smarter to seek a new ecosystem.
I can confirm Fortnite and other quality games are coming. Fortnite alone should give this service some much needed recognition.
May I ask where do you get that information?
That was a mistake when they placed it an update that Amazon put out for Luna. They quickly pulled it as it came up. Where is your source that it is definitely coming and your confirmation that it is?