I'm convinced their team is just way too little for this. They squandered such an opportunity to be at the forefront
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fucking wow. Stadias vulkan API porting requirement looks so much stupider now.
the sprinted ahead to beat xcloud to market but forgot to bring a library with them
Music is a little different because they have to keep a catalog of millions of songs to compete with all the other $10 services and are forced to pay license holders on a per play basis. With gaming they can limit their costs by doing lump sum deals and limiting catalog size since that model has yet to be standardized. I don't know what they need to charge and how many subscribers they need to make a profit, but it scales a lot better than with music which is pretty linear in costs.
I guess you dont know how Prime works. There's tons of separate TV apps you can subscribe to separately. I suspect they will just simply add a Luna app to that which will be billed separately it's not like your Prime membership price is increasing.
Lowers the bar significantly, especially for smaller devs who don't have resources or experience with porting. Stadia requiring Linux is just arrogance.
It sounds like they have great tech and engineering talent, but management and strategy are a disaster.
Why should Google pay a licensing fee to Microsoft for Windows on a game that doesn't use Windows at all?
Nintendo I agree, they take things their way for good or bad. Microsoft is completely ready. Sony is another story and uncertain how they'll adapt.
Huh? Linux is the only option for Stadia, devs can't put their Windows games that they already have working for Steam onto Stadia. Why should game devs spend weeks or months porting a game to Linux/Vulkan to reach Stadia users which are a tiny fraction compared to Steam or consoles?
It's common sense that Google wouldn't rely on Windows to do something like that. I'm a bit surprised that Amazon did go that way actually.
Microsoft has so much power in the cloud (gaming specifically now) space it's crazy, from hosting PS Now to licensing Windows to Amazon for Luna, not to mention their own service skyrocketing thanks to Gamepass.
They could go on private games tho, Twitch could finally catch up to the cam sites it has been chasing all this time.
It'd be common sense to make it as easy to develop for/port to your platform as possible, especially when you lack first party games and your userbase is tiny.
Without games and users (chicken and egg), it matters very little that you're getting an OS for free.
Exactly. They won't for old games. It'll be the next games' backends that can be built on Vulkan. Google wants to keep that entire stack Open Source.
That's big. They could easily surpass Stadia's library after a couple months.
Fascinating. I wonder why Google/MS don't take this approach. Maybe Google hates the idea of working with a non-Chrome browser that much!
Amazon Music Unlimited Single Device Plan | Just $4.99/month
Play your favorite music hands-free with innovative voice controls powered by Alexa. Unlimited access to 90 million songs on a single eligible Echo or Fire TV device for just $4.99/month. Always ad-free and on-demand.
www.amazon.com
I know how Prime works, thanks.
They aren't including Luna+ in the price of Prime, nor would they bundle it or increase the price of Prime and force it on people who don't want it. It will stay as its own separate thing.
Those in this thread who are imagining Amazon bundling Luna+ WITH Prime are headed for disappointment.
If anything, Amazon has been UN-bundling services. Twitch Prime becomes Twitch Turbo, a separate purchase, if you want to remove ads.
The absolute largest missed opportunity was Sony.
Sony had PSNow up and running in like 2013 - off of PS3s and Vita(!) and even some select Smart Tvs. Then, when the PS4 was such a smash hit; they consolidated a lot of services and only had PSNow running on PS4's and Desktops.
They were at the absolute forefront of this sort of technology and could have been the market leader regarding it; but its 2020 and they still don't even have a phone app to directly access the service.
There shouldn't be any performance issues. Progressive web apps are just a way of launching a browser instance, and all that browser instance needs to do is stream a video. Modern smartphones generally don't have performance issues with 1080p streamed video on a browser.
That price seems like a good guess. It's the same as what Ubisoft charge for Uplay+.
The Ubisoft channel on Luna doesn't look like it'll be as comprehensive as Uplay+, but I doubt that Ubisoft are going to want it to be much cheaper, since the lower the price gets, the better it looks compared to Uplay+... and Ubisoft presumably will not get 100% of the Luna channel's subscription costs from Amazon. For Ubisoft the option that makes the most sense is to set the cost at or near the same price as Uplay+ and then offer a subset of what Uplay+ offers - perhaps a large subset, but still a subset.
That makes a lot of sense, especially in terms of the number of games that they're able to launch with and how Amazon are able to launch with a subscription service. It should also mean that they're able to grow from their launch library pretty quickly, which might be important, since quick growth would not only demonstrate their key advantage over Stadia, but it'd also start filling in the gaps that are still evident in the range of games they've announced.
That's only available on Echo or Fire TV though. I suppose Amazon could do something similar by making it cheaper on a single device.
There won't be next games on Stadia if they have no users (because they have no games now). They could be smart by supporting Windows to build up a catalog of games and once there are enough users, giving devs financial incentives to port. But no, they're Google, they think they're big and good at tech, so they think devs automatically will meet their requirements.
Yes and there are many ways they could've enhanced that prior to launch without conceding into a Windows back-end, having a shitty launch doesn't rule out the nature of some choices, execution is mostly to blame.
They could've put a portion of their workforce into contributing to Steam Proton enabling them to better run Windows DirectX games, promote Vulkan to developers, creating more tools, prepare more games for launch, a better pricing model, supporting more devices etc.
I don't think Sony had the R&D pockets to fund cloud the way Microsoft, Google, and Amazon do. Those companies make billions from their general purpose cloud platforms and had over a decade to build up that tech all while making profits, which paved the way for what they can do with gaming now. Sony simply can't compete that way. It's not like they can leverage their movie studio or LCD TV business.
Or they can do what Amazon's doing which is easier for both parties. Then if Amazon is successful with a large enough userbase and they've crossed the chicken and egg threshold, they can incentivize devs to use Linux instead. Amazon isn't locked into supporting Windows. They just realized it creates the least friction when you are launching in a competitive market.
I understand the benefit to Ubisoft, except for adoption rate. Once the cost gets this high, the available audience starts shrinking rapidly.
I get the Ubisoft "channel" is supposed to be a premium service, but I just don't see it taking off if the price for each of these channels is north of $10. It's just not a good value anymore.
If each of the premium publishers were to get a channel, the subscription to get what you want as a gamer goes through the roof.
Yup. Don't be fooled by the occasional partnership - Chrome Edge, Surface Duo's Android, etc -, Google sees themselves as the anti-Microsoft, they'd would sooner kill Stadia than give in to Windows support.
That's why you only sub to one channel at a time when one of them releases something you want
if you sub to multiple channels at once your only hurting yourself
So is this like Stadia where you have to subscribe and also buy the games separately, or is it like PS Now?
More like Game Pass with the Luna+ base sub. You then subscribe to publisher specific channels for more games. No buying games outright.
Service doesn't seem interesting as of now but Twitch might help this. The channel approach sounds also good for enticing publishers who want to earn a bigger cut from streaming.
Sucks that my mfi controller feels so useless right now. Wish Apple didn't botch the layout so badly.
Sucks that my mfi controller feels so useless right now. Wish Apple didn't botch the layout so badly.
Ah, so each Channel (Ubisoft Channel, EA Channel, etc) is a different price? So you pay $5 for Luna on top of whatever the channels cost?
Speaking as someone that works with people in the Stadia porting/build process, this would save a ton of work and headaches. Though I still commend Stadia for pushing Vulkan API support.
Yup, and they claim 100 games at the base subscription, which are probably going to be rotated.
Yep, but that's the risk Amazon take by even allowing this system to exist. Players will effectively need to build their own package, and publishers will need to be careful not to overvalue their own catalogue of games.
