After its launch last year, Amazon Luna is shaping up to be one of the better cloud gaming platforms thanks to the service's focus on a user-friendly experience with a ton of quality-of-life features. The service entered early access in North America last October, with a steady stream of new games and features being added since. While Amazon Luna isn't quite out of early access, an upcoming feature may have just launched the service forward.
There hasn't been a lot of news surrounding the Amazon Luna as of recent outside of Fire tablet and Chromebook support, though the recently revealed Luna Couch feature makes up for it. Luna Couch allows Amazon Luna subscribers to play local co-op games with others online, similar to the program Parsec and Steam Remote Play. This opens up the possibility of online multiplayer to a ton of games that would otherwise not support it and is incredibly unique to the Amazon Luna service.
Luna Couch allows games that normally support local co-op to instead be played online. This service is only available to those who subscribe to the Luna+ channel, a separate $5.99 USD monthly fee. However, non-subscribers can still play local multiplayer games with subscribers, which means that online local multiplayer consoling gaming would be available to a much wider range of users.
Currently, none of the other major cloud gaming services support this kind of online local multiplayer, though Amazon Luna adding the feature may cause services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now to work towards a similar feature. Luna Couch is not only a great reason to check out Amazon Luna, but it's also a great advancement for cloud gaming as a whole. In a world where gaming is slowly becoming more open across platforms, online local multiplayer fits right in.
Cloud gaming as a whole has been an incredibly open platform, with many games like Fortnite going cross-platform with its multiplayer through services like Game Pass. Online multiplayer is just about as cross-platform as it can be now, so local multiplayer seems like the next natural step in opening gaming for more people. Even with Luna Couch being behind a paywall, it still sets an example for the other cloud gaming platforms.
Up until this announcement, Amazon Luna didn't really have any notable features or games that helped it to stand out. A common criticism of the service is that there wasn't any reason to use it over the more established platforms. Game Pass has a wider selection of games and helped bridge the gap between multiple different systems. In contrast, Luna has a far smaller selection of games and is still in early access, making it less reliable than the other cloud gaming services.
Cloud gaming has quickly caught the interest of multiple different companies, with nearly every major console producer having its own cloud gaming service. While there have been attempts to create a cloud gaming platform in the past, the technology hasn't quite been up to the task until recently. Cloud gaming services aren't quite commonplace but innovations like Amazon Luna's Luna Couch could help in that respect.
However, providing a workaround for local multiplayer games to be played online gives Amazon Luna something to help it stand out. For the time being, the feature is unique to Amazon Luna and may remain that way for some time. While this does give users a reason to check out Amazon Luna, the limited availability and price of the service still remain a major downside. Despite this, Luna Couch may finally help Amazon Luna stand out from its competitors.
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