Amazon Luna launch – the precursor to the return of browser gaming?

It is not much of a surprise that the biggest companies in the world want a slice of the gaming industry. It is worth billions of dollars every single year, and recently, companies such as Google and Amazon have been taking massive strides in order to try and create a competitive offering in the world of gaming. 

In recent years, people have also become used to having more ways to play their games. A lot of us are using mobile and smartphone options to play new and exciting mobile and even casino games. A promo code for BetRivers casino can be entered quickly, allowing you to get started and play a variety of games in a really short period of time. This sort of convenience has become the norm, and big companies are trying to offer fast and efficient ways to play.

Perhaps the ultimate convenience for people is browser gaming – instead of having to download any software or take up loads of space on your hard drive, you can play games right there within your browser.

When some of us think of browser gaming, we might think of some of the blocky flash games available 10 years ago, or even longer. These were incredibly limited, but this is not the case anymore. Okay, so you might not find the new Resident Evil game playable in your browser but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t in-depth games available, and Amazon Luna is leading the way.

All about Luna

It was inevitable that Amazon would enter the world of browser gaming at some point, and the switch to streaming-based platforms is hugely important.

We’ve seen other companies doing a similar thing. For example, Google’s Stadia made huge waves in this industry, allowing you to play games on the cloud using a specific controller you buy from the brand, and you can even connect the device to your television. This is, undeniably, the direction in which technology is going. Cloud games stream straight to your device, and that is what Luna does too. The difference is that Luna does it right within your browser.

Think of it like the time when the world shifted from owning DVDs or even downloading movies to watch, and then started streaming them through Netflix and other platforms. That is what is currently happening to the gaming industry.

For movies, you may only need around 2Mbps to get a reliable stream, but games require a quicker connection – around 10Mbps should do it. Fortunately, in some parts of the US, the average broadband speed doubled last year alone, and continues to get quicker all the time.

Amazon’s own literature explains that to play on Luna, you need a great Wi-Fi connection, as gaming via the cloud can use up to 10GB of bandwidth every hour if you are streaming in HD.

Luna is incredibly flexible, and you can play on PC or Mac as well as on the Safari browser on your Apple device. As you’d expect, it works natively with Amazon hardware such as the Fire TV or Fire tablets.

A touch controller is available, and you can use this on a variety of devices, but if you don’t want to do this, there is a companion app that lets you use your mobile as the controller. 

This is all pretty smart, and the games stack up to the level of futuristic gaming. While it might have been safe to assume that some of the more basic animations like Yooka-Laylee are on the app, few would have predicted support for big titles like ​​Far Cry 6, with its focus on more realistic graphics, but these are indeed playable through Luna.

The future of gaming

A lot of us think of how amazing gaming can become in the future with AI, and even better graphics technology, but actually you might not have considered convenience as a factor.

You can continue to play games in whatever way you see fit, and there are so many different types of platform that Luna is supported on, whether you want to play on the train on your way to work or you prefer a day of gaming on your television.

Nobody knows exactly what the future can bring, but the only thing really holding back cloud gaming was the fact that internet connections couldn’t handle it. Now, Luna has proved that the internet connections most of us already have are good enough for gaming.