Luna, Amazon's take on cloud-based gaming, launches in (limited) early access

Amazon’s freshly announced Luna service is now available in early access, though that doesn’t mean that the cloud-based game streaming service is open to the general public.

Instead, a “small set” of Amazon customers in the United States have received invites to try the service out through their Fire TV, PC, Mac, or iOS web apps with more invites rolling out over the coming months.

The folks at Amazon see the limited early access launch as an opportunity to hear what works and doesn’t work about the fledgling service, and communicate with streamers and players across different experience levels while doing so.

Interestingly, it seems that those in the early access program won’t be able to check out the program entirely free of charge. Unlike Google’s similar Stadia service, Luna isn’t offering full price game purchases (at least at this point) and is instead offering games through its Luna+ Game Channel subscription, or a Ubisoft-centric “game channel” due out in the near future.

In the case of that Luna+ Game Channel, early access participants can explore and play the library of 50+ games for free during a 7 week trial, but will need to pay the $5.99 per month Luna+ subscription fee from then on to access that library.

Those invited will also be able to purchase one of the service’s Luna Controllers, though Amazon emphasizes that any Bluetooth controller should work with the service.