Thread by @dsmart

This is a very big deal indeed.

Amazon’s Luna game streaming service is powered by Windows and Nvidia GPUs theverge.com/2020/9/25/2145…

When Google decided to do Stadia, maybe they thought that because most of the leading game engines supported Linux - and thus Vulcan api for graphics - that devs would rush on board.

Thing is, like OGL, Vulcan hasn't exactly lit our collective butts on fire because it's new (to those not keeping up to date), and it's a major hassle to implement in a graphics pipeline. Forget about porting from DX to Vulcan; it makes grown men wheep.

That, in part, is precisely what explains the dearth of titles on Stadia because it's a major hassle to port pre-existing titles to Vulcan in order to support Stadia.

Not only does porting present a major hassle for titles in dev, but it requires specialist (most of us graphics gurus are borderline insane - so there's that) discipline that most devs don't have.

The other aspect of Stadia is that it runs on Linux (hence Vulcan) which - for games - is already a hassle of epic proportions which is why DX is still reins supreme.

And then we have the grinning gorilla in the room: Windows licensing - which isn't factored into cloud costs if Linux is used.

So, that Amazon went with Windows as it's basis for Luna is a major issue that simply can't be overstated because it's the fastest path of resistance. And it's precisely why - if they [Amazon] don't blow it somehow - Luna is probably going to win the PC game streaming battle.

The other factor here is the games. This has always been the bane of these services whereby the anemic catalog of 'also ran' games you already own and/or played on other platforms aren't a big enough draw for finicky gamers to want to pay a monthly fee for.