Amazon has added a new Games Hub to Fire TV devices, which can be accessed by selecting the “Games” tile on the Fire TV search screen. The new hub is heavily focused on Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service, which is understandable since that’s currently the most popular type of gaming being done on Fire TV devices, but you’ll also find local downloadable games from the Amazon Appstore being highlighted, as well as Twitch streams and game trailers.
Along the top of the Game Hub is a row to help get you started with games on the Fire TV. There are a couple of help videos you can watch, followed by a shortcut to the game controller pairing screen in the Fire TV settings. There’s also a tile that displays a QR code to quickly get the Luna app on your phone, which can serve as a virtual controller for Luna games. The Broadcast tile on the far right just guides you to linking a Twitch account with Luna so you can stream from Luna to Twitch.
Scrolling down through the Game Hub you’ll mostly find rows highlighting different games available in Luna, like Luna editor’s picks, newly added Luna games, Luna Metacritic picks, and Luna trending games. Scattered around you’ll also find several rows of live Twitch streams you can start watching, but even those are mostly centered around Luna, with rows like Streams of Luna Prime games, and Luna Gameplay Broadcasts. There are just two rows for downloadable local games, one for Download and Play and one for games that work with the Fire TV remote.
While this entire hub feels like a big ad for Luna, I don’t really blame Amazon for doing it or hold it against them. The Fire TV gaming selection has been very stale for years and, outside of retro emulation through sideloading, I doubt there are many people regularly playing local games on Fire TV devices. Luna is certainly the most interesting this around when it comes to Fire TV gaming, so it makes sense to highlight it the most in Fire TV’s new Game Hub.
Leave a Reply