Stadia, GeForce NOW and Microsoft's own xCloud have more competition coming with Amazon formally throwing their controller onto the sofa with Amazon Luna.
Amazon Luna will give you access to certain Channels of games which you subscribe to. The first two announced are Amazon's own Luna+ to get access to a "growing" library and Ubisoft are also confirmed to have their own subscription channel coming to it too. The Luna+ subscription will have 100s of games from big names too like Resident Evil 7, Control, The Surge 2, A Plague Tale: Innocence and a great many more. By the time it launches, it's going to have quite a full library already.
Instead of the Stadia and GeForce NOW model, they're very much going for a 'Netflix of games' style that Microsoft is doing with things like Game Pass. Just like Google Stadia, Amazon Luna will have its own dedicated Alexa-enabled gamepad which connects directly to Amazon through WiFi which is supposed to help reduce latency which is the biggest problem with these services.
Luna will come with heavy Twitch integration too, including showing you Twitch streams for games across the Luna service. This makes sense, since Amazon own Twitch. This is where it gets really interesting, and something Google has been ridiculously slow on with Stadia. You will see Twitch streams inside Luna, and be able to click play and jump right into a game while watching on Twitch. The power of that cannot be understated.
Currently, early access to Luna is available exclusively by invitation and even then that's only in the USA. Everyone else will just have to sit and wait until Amazon open it up further.
It's not clear if it will work on Linux or be supported at this time. However, Amazon did mention it can be played in a Chrome browser so it's quite likely it will be able to run on Linux just like Stadia and GeForce NOW. Full press release available here and you can find the Luna page here. Once we find out more and any Linux details, we will let you know.
How long until Valve throw their Steam Controller onto the sofa and announce their own? If they don't, they might end up as one of the only major gaming stores not to at this rate. The cloud game streaming wars have truly begun now. How do you feel about it?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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ElectricPrism Sep 25, 2020
Quoting: 1xokValve is much smaller than Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Valve is basically a family business. Okay a pretty big one but just small compared to a company like Amazon. Amazon has almost unlimited computing power. Valve can't build something like that even if they wanted to.
This always triggers a personal hangup whereby people inappropriately conflate Size, Amount, or Marketshare with success -- and yet we live in a world where 1% of the world controls over 50% of the money, and 1% of a poison substance in water can still kill.
I often see numerical arguments about the % of Linux users vs other groups that misrepresent the reality of how much money and games users of Linux demographic buy vs other operating systems.
And they think that somehow scarcity of available-content doesn't effect sell products when they are trying to compete against a hundred billion other games in the MASS MARKET.
Like somehow because Amazing is "BIGGER" and have various Market-Territories and SCOPE they are suddenly "BETTER" or ready to enter the gaming space or any have any clue what they're doing. It took Xbox probably a good 5 years around 2000 where Microsoft was loosing money, they had no idea what they were doing, and we're trying to get solid talent and grounded in the Gaming Industry.
It's like a person who has 5 million dollars and wants to instantly build a house, as if money was the only metric that effects things has no concept of staging contractors and a order of operations.
Some people aren't aware that in the past Valve has actually been the most profitable company per employee in the United States.
https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/15/valve-makes-more-money-per-employee-than-google-or-apple/
I agree the entrance of Amazon into the digital game content steaming market is significant and interesting, but as a gamer my interest is pretty low from what I know so far.
I am however very interested in if they are using AWS or other Linux and doing things that will benefit Linux via kernel patches, MESA improvements, etc...
I really don't want to pay to "rent content" and rely on some "gaming farm thing" being online to enjoy the products I pay for. (Exactly how long will it be before the Gaming Provider injects a 3 minuet ad every 15 minuets in addition to the upfront high service cost. They literally can't help but rape the customer for as much money as they can from exacting cash from customers and advertisers.) Some people will love it, but these are separate markets with maybe some overlap.
We're approaching a "lost age" where this content could disappear from the future once these services shut down in failure or move on. I'm not going to play the [streaming] game.
Anyways, sorry for the rant, no hard feelings it's just a primitive and over-simplistic appraisal I see so often propagated by low IQ people, and it sounds good until you really stop to think about it and realize the truth in what Yoda says "Size Matters Not"
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 25 September 2020 at 1:01 am UTC
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Quoting: MohandevirQuoteHow long until Valve throw their Steam Controller onto the sofa and announce their own?
We always have the choice, but Valve is in a position where it could crush everyone of them, if they don't wait too long. I'm affraid that's what might play against Valve... Valve time.
The train is leaving the station, they should jump onboard before it's too late. New market... Better early than late.
I don't know enough about the industry but in my fantasy land brain, I would love for Valve to get Stadia built in.
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Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.Since I think cloud-gaming is worse then gaming on Windows, I hope more services pop up so people get fed up and the whole thing dies. Stadia was/is hyped because it runs Linux. Now there are games on Stadia which are not available on Linux, so it did not help in that regard. Yes, you can use stadia on linux. But, unlike having the binaries on your PC, this might break and you loose access. And they even started with exclusives ..
tldr;
Fragmentation is the chemo-therapy for the cancer which is cloud-gaming.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.
If this continues and if they start having exclusives, piracy will surge. Nobody wants more than 1-2 subscriptions, if any.
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Not that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
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Quoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?
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Quoting: 3zekielQuoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?
Stadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.
7 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Sep 25, 2020
Minor stuff, but one of the problems that GeForce now has, with a Windows backhand, is the fact that you have to deal with the Windows desktop. It's pretty easy to minimize the Steam/Uplay/Epic window to the tray without being able to bring it back in full screen. You get the feeling that it lacks a K+M, when it happens. I don't know what it's going to be like on Luna, but that's my oberservation; It's not a fully integrated solution. You really have the feeling that you are dealing with a Windows desktop. On this aspect, Stadia is much more polished, even if still incomplete.
Imo, it feels like a badly integrated PC-Console hybrid that's even worse than what the Steam Machines were, concerning the critics it received, at the time...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 12:30 pm UTC
Imo, it feels like a badly integrated PC-Console hybrid that's even worse than what the Steam Machines were, concerning the critics it received, at the time...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 12:30 pm UTC
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Mohandevir Sep 25, 2020
In fact, what is really sad, imo, it's that cloud gaming is an excellent opportunity to create new techs and get out of the DX-Windows paradigm. If these cloud providers could work together with open source techs, they could do some fascinating stuff that Microsoft alone can't do. But no, they prefer easy solutions with their limitations and perpetuate the vendor lock-ins (Amazon-Nvidia-Microsoft).
I wonder how they expect to solve an issue if it's related to the underlying OS? Cry in Microsoft's ear and wait for an approximate solution not custom tailored for their needs, instead of taking care of the issue themselves? Windows has unsolved issues that goes back to Windows XP and beyond... Oh well...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 2:54 pm UTC
I wonder how they expect to solve an issue if it's related to the underlying OS? Cry in Microsoft's ear and wait for an approximate solution not custom tailored for their needs, instead of taking care of the issue themselves? Windows has unsolved issues that goes back to Windows XP and beyond... Oh well...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 2:54 pm UTC
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Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.
Well, that happens every time there is a new market in ascension. In the future some of then will close and we will see 2~3 still existing when cloud gaming matures.
We can look at console history to see a lot of companies that tried to be on this market and failed, leading to what we have today
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Quoting: fleskThat may be true in some cases but not true in a lot of other cases. It seems like the compatibility layers and shims to make Windows games run on Linux could be the biggest benefit. Destiny 2 was not written with Linux in mind as far as I know, but ran really well on Stadia. Is Google sharing that technology openly with the rest of Linux land? If not and it isn't GPL, then Google isn't doing much to move things forward at all in my opinion.Quoting: 3zekielQuoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?
Stadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat controller is the spitting image of an Xbox One wireless controller with an extra mic button below the main "Xbox/Luna" button and the 3 control buttons (mic, menu, meta) arranged in a triangle. I have this one in blue/gray. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/grey-blueQuoting: elmapulbtw, purple is my favorite collor, so this background is automagically beautyfullI heartily endorse the purpleness of it.
and the name is a perfect fit.
but the controller, looks like some one just glued togheter 2 pieces to pretend they were just one...
hopefully i'm right and you can change the base depending on your hands size...
The controller has a bit of purple theme going, too, so it's not all bad.
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Mohandevir Sep 25, 2020
Quoting: randylQuoting: fleskThat may be true in some cases but not true in a lot of other cases. It seems like the compatibility layers and shims to make Windows games run on Linux could be the biggest benefit. Destiny 2 was not written with Linux in mind as far as I know, but ran really well on Stadia. Is Google sharing that technology openly with the rest of Linux land? If not and it isn't GPL, then Google isn't doing much to move things forward at all in my opinion.Quoting: 3zekielQuoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?
Stadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.
You right in saying that Stadia doesn't push Linux desktop adoption, but we benefit from Google's contribution to open source. They regularly push patches upstream that benefits to Linux desktop.
As for the specific case of Destiny 2, I may be wrong, but the problem is well known, if I remember correctly. It's related to Destiny's custom anti-cheat. It's been removed in the Stadia build and it's what causes a lot of problem on the desktop.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 6:11 pm UTC
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Quoting: MohandevirI think you're right. I asked about this on Discord and it was explained that the developers need to make a Stadia Linux compatible binary that can leverage Angle and the various DX compatible API translators like DXVK. So with Stadia everything is basically running natively against their Stadia Linux build. Now we just need to encourage studios and publishers to sell that build on other store fronts like Steam, Humble, GoG, etc.Quoting: randylQuoting: fleskThat may be true in some cases but not true in a lot of other cases. It seems like the compatibility layers and shims to make Windows games run on Linux could be the biggest benefit. Destiny 2 was not written with Linux in mind as far as I know, but ran really well on Stadia. Is Google sharing that technology openly with the rest of Linux land? If not and it isn't GPL, then Google isn't doing much to move things forward at all in my opinion.Quoting: 3zekielQuoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20
I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?
Stadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.
You right in saying that Stadia doesn't push Linux desktop adoption, but we benefit from Google's contribution to open source. They regularly push patches upstream that benefits to Linux desktop.
As for the specific case of Destiny 2, I may be wrong, but the problem is well known, if I remember correctly. It's related to Destiny's custom anti-cheat. It's been removed in the Stadia build and it's what causes a lot of problem on the desktop.
1 Likes, Who?
brokeassben Sep 25, 2020
well it'll run on Windows instances, so that's a unfortunate.
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Quoting: brokeassbenwell it'll run on Windows instances, so that's a unfortunate.
Amazon were too lazy to put an effort in it like Google did. So they are just spreading MS lock-in in practice.
Last edited by Shmerl on 25 September 2020 at 9:26 pm UTC
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Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.Eh, that's temporary. There will be 2-3 real players in the end and the others will fail or get purchased by the bigger guys.
I wonder which cloud provider Nvidia uses. The other three game streaming services also own their own "cloud." I wonder if Nvidia is using their own data centers or if they're utilizing one of the other guys'.
On to my opinion of this new service: No thanks. I'll pass. Amazon is already too big and it's starting to get sickening.
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Quoting: fleskStadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.
It's just a shame that it's not as good for either developers or customers as the competing services.
For developers, they have to go to the effort of porting to Linux, which they don't have to do for the competitors.
For customers, you don't have access to games you've bought elsewhere, and you lose access to games that you've bought should you lose access to Stadia, which comes from the notoriously-fickle Google.
Which means that it won't have as much impact on the part we care about - game devs getting more experience with Linux gaming and Vulkan - as if it were a more competitive offering.
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Quoting: pbIf this continues and if they start having exclusives, piracy will surge. Nobody wants more than 1-2 subscriptions, if any.
Actually, real cloud exclusiveness would be the death of piracy. If you never get your hands on any binaries to begin with...
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: pbIf this continues and if they start having exclusives, piracy will surge. Nobody wants more than 1-2 subscriptions, if any.
Actually, real cloud exclusiveness would be the death of piracy. If you never get your hands on any binaries to begin with...
Binaries always exist somewhere, so...
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