Invitations for early access to Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service have started rolling out to select customers. Check your inbox for an invitation if you requested early access, but it does seem like only a small portion of requests have been fullfilled. The service has launched with 50 games in the Luna+ Channel for an early-access price of $5.99. Games include Control, Metro: Exodus, Grid, The Surge 1 & 2, Sonic Mania, several SteamWorld games, and much more. Additional channels, such as a Ubisoft channel, each with their own set of games and subscription will eventually be available through the service, but they’re not available yet. It doesn’t seem like the new Luna controller has shipped yet, but some have reported being able to order one with their early access invitation.
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I only game on desktop PC’s and I see the service is not limited to Fire TV, so this could get interesting.
Hope a full list of games available is published soon.
Grrr on multiple levels for me. Firstly only available in the US for now, but what has annoyed me is this Luna controller.. so I just upgraded my 2nd gen box to a 2nd gen cube, was obviously a bit annoyed when I realised the amazon game controller doesn’t work on Fire OS 6/7.. okay so I will use my xbox controller and sell the amazon one on ebay with my old box, but this new luna controller looks just the same, I assume it’s just a BT controller compared to whatever strange tech the amazon game controller was but meh. Personally won’t be buying the luna controller out of principle now. I feel robbed of my matching controller.
I agree, had bought 2 of the Fire TV game controllers when they were $50 each. Now they’re essentially worthless, and Amazon is trying to push gaming again like we all have amnesia or can’t find better, more reliable gaming options. With the PS5 and Xbox Series X just a month away from release it would be foolish to try this just to see it eventually fail like it’s predecessor. I also doubt that Amazon will ever let game streaming from other consoles on the AFTV. I feel bad for the children who wake up to this disappointment on Christmas Day and for the parents who spent their hard earned money on this fluke.
It’s truly frustrating. Another thing that is broken by this, is controller support for all the original games like crossy road, pacman and similar. While I can download these games on my cube, and can connect an xbox controller, those older games were programmed only for the amazon controller, so you now have to play them with the actual remote, or not at all. Thankfully Asphalt 8 and some other games do have support for all controller types, but the whole amazon gaming thing is a mess IMO.
I also own an xbox so have xcloud included with game pass ulimate, I haven’t tried sideloading it to my cube, but even if it doesn’t work, I won’t be subscribing to this, or paying a premium for an amazon controller, after being forced to sell my perfectly good condition one, with my old 2nd gen box.
I will say this though, both Kodi and RetroArch for Google TV/Fire TV allow for different controller profiles and custom button mapping. And when you add the IARL addon to Kodi via the Zach Morris Repo and get all the retroarch cores downloaded you’ll have yourself a pretty nice retro machine setup on your AFTV Cube to compliment your Xbox.
Steam Link (sideloaded) works fairly well through my Fire Cube Gen 2.
I suspect hardcore gamers would not be overly impressed with the performance but for the casual gamer (such as myself) it works ok, without any noticeable lag using WIFI and an XBOX blue-tooth controller.
At least the Steam games are a huge upgrade over Amazon’s standard fair, plus there are zero monthly fees involved.
From what I understand, the Luna controller actually connects directly to the game servers via WiFi rather than to the Fire TV directly in order to eliminate a lot of the lag associated with cloud gaming. There is, however, a mode that allows for bluetooth connection, but I think that’s mainly a back-up of sorts.