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In This Edition,
Amazon Luna comes to Prime Video
Can it replace consoles?
Amazon talk Unhinged, Bond and Clutch
… and reaching ‘tens of millions’ of players
Hello there. How is your summer going?
Last week we had a lovely chat with Netflix about its new streaming hit Unhinged. The horror game is aimed at an audience that may or may not exist: people that want a narrative video game, but aren’t interested in a console or gaming PC.
Netflix is trying to reach these people through the Netflix app. And today, Amazon Luna has announced it’s doing the same thing. The game streaming platform is now available directly within Prime Video.
Luna is a slightly different proposition to Netflix, as it features AAA games such as Indiana Jones, EA Sports FC and Hogwarts Legacy (with Tomb Raider to come). But the goal is similar. And for this week’s edition, I had a chance to find out more from Jeffrey Gattis, who oversees both Luna and Amazon Game Studios.
The full conversation is worth watching above. But I’ve also selected some key stories below.
Enjoy!
$1,000 game consoles could drive people to Luna, says Amazon
Amazon isn’t targeting console players with its Luna streaming platform, the company says.
However, with the prospect of $1,000 video game machines, it might prove a viable alternative for gamers who are unwilling, or unable, to afford such devices.
“Our business isn’t predicated on replacing consoles,” said Jeffrey Gattis, Amazon’s general manager for games.
“Historically, cloud gaming has been a little bit of a solution in search of a problem. Consoles, for the most part, have been relatively inexpensive until now. So, our business is more about reaching more players and expanding the market, not trying to get people to give up their consoles or gaming PCs.
“The world doesn’t need another one of those. They don’t need a fourth entry selling the same games and competing for the same pie of players. It really isn’t growing.
“Having said all that, we saw the Steam Machine opening at $1,000. We hear rumors about consoles, because of the RAM crisis, pushing up over $1,000 in Gen 10. So, I do think you get to a point at which more people will be in the consideration set for a cloud gaming solution, just because of the sheer cost of buying dedicated hardware.”
Gattis was speaking to The Game Business following the news that Luna is being added to the Prime Video app. Now Prime subscribers can access games like EA Sports FC 26, Hogwarts Legacy and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, directly via the app.
Amazon hopes this will help it find an audience who might be interested in console-like games, but isn’t interested in buying a console.
“This is about reaching players that a lot of those games are never going to be able to reach. Particularly in a world of $1,000 consoles.”
“There’s three billion people in the world who play video games, yet there’s only, depending on how you do the math, 300 million to 500 million dedicated hardware devices out in the wild,” Gattis said. “So, there’s a lot of people who have some sort of affinity for video games. Maybe they’re playing on mobile. Maybe they’re playing through a browser. But they’re not having the highest fidelity experience.
“And when you start to unpack a little bit about why they don’t do that. We’ve just talked about hardware getting increasingly expensive, and games can be big investments to go buy a $70 game, to go through the download experience, to pair a controller, and then spend hundreds of hours, in some cases, to complete them. So, we see an opportunity to serve a group of people who haven’t really been well served because the console and PC companies are mostly focused on those hardcore players.”
He continued: “For the first time in a long time, I feel like we have a single gaming strategy. We understand what we’re doing, we understand what we’re not doing, and we’re executing against it. And time will tell how well we can execute and how right we are about our thesis.”
Because Luna is targeting new players, Gattis hopes he can convince more publishers to get involved.
“The scepticism you’ll hear is, ‘Well, if I put my games on Luna, particularly if we push it into Prime, I’m going to cannibalize all my sales on these other platforms.’ And the reality is, at least the pitch that we keep making - and it is the truth - is that this is about reaching players that a lot of those games are never going to be able to reach. Particularly in a world of $1,000 consoles.”
Gattis says the aim is to reach tens of millions of players within Luna.
“We believe we can build a net scale gaming platform that’s serving that two and a half billion audience that I think is a little underserved. Obviously, there’s a lot of work we have to do to get our content portfolio right, to get our product right, to get our messaging and awareness in the right place. Things like integrating with Prime Video, things like trying to figure out how to go deeper with Fire TV… there’s Twitch. Those are all the pieces that we have to work with, and what I’d love to say five years from now is that we’re much more deeply integrated across the broader Amazon, and we’re serving tens of millions of players.”
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Amazon hails Netflix’s Unhinged
Amazon’s games boss Jeffrey Gattis ‘loved’ Netflix’s hit cloud game Unhinged.
The horror game, which we covered last week, is aimed at a similar audience to the one Amazon is after: people who don’t necessarily own consoles, but are interested in interactive stories.
“We share a similar vision to Netflix,” Gattis said. “I love to see what they’re doing in this space, because we both have the same thesis about making games available to more people.”
He continued: “I actually played [Unhinged] last night. We want to do more of these things, too, where you start to push the envelope a bit in terms of new types of creative endeavors. There’s an opportunity to create a lot of these newer experiences that are not traditional video games, but think of them as almost extensions of the video viewing process. I love it.”
Amazon is interested in Maverick’s Clutch game after all
Amazon has cancelled a number of projects over the past 12 months, including the MMO New World and a Lord of the Rings online project. It also stopped operations on co-op game King of Meat, and sold the unreleased MOBA March of Giants to Ubisoft.
The firm is instead focusing on big IP, cinematic experiences, and games with simple mechanics that are easy to jump into.
“That’s where we’ve found a sweet spot since our relaunch in October,” Gattis said. “And maybe not trying to compete for the hardest of hardcore who are playing multiplayer competitive shooters, at least not today.”
There is one game that Amazon dropped that did seem to fit with this vision. Clutch is a new cinematic racing game by Maverick Games, which is a studio formed by Forza Horizon veterans. Amazon was funding the project, but as we revealed in February, the company abandoned it and handed it back to the studio.
“That decision actually was made before I took over,” Gattis explained. “I can’t speak to all the mechanics behind it. I can tell you that I too like the game. We’ve reached out to them recently and we’re trying to see if it’s a fit for Luna. So, it’d be a different business relationship than the one we had before, but the game looks great.”
Gattis said that AAA games are still part of the Amazon Games remit.
“We range from what we call Game Night games, which are those phone-as-a-controller games - single A titles that are in the single millions of dollars to develop - all the way up to AAA. We have announced the two Tomb Raider titles. [Legacy of] Atlantis comes February 12 next year, and then we’ll follow on in 2028 with the next one. We’re excited about those. There are some other AAA things that are in various stages of discussion right now.
“Ultimately, we want to build an identity with Luna, where we have a content portfolio that resonates with people, where they think, ‘Oh gosh, that’s the place that has Tomb Raider, and maybe Bond, and they have these other things.’ And that takes time to go build. But, for us to be the platform we want to be, and the one we believe we can be, you very much have to have original content.”
Amazon excited by 007: First Light future
Amazon had some involvement in the development of 007: First Light, the hit James Bond game by IO Interactive that launched in May. However, the company wants to be more involved in any potential sequel.
“IO did just a tremendous job,” Gattis said. “I don’t think it was a surprise. They did it so well that it just shows that these single player action-adventure narrative-driven games really resonate with a lot of people, and that’s shown up in the sales that we’ve seen.
“We’re excited about the franchise and where it can go from here. The game’s two months old, so we’re going to let it breathe for a while before everyone wants to ask about a sequel. It’s an awesome game. Those games really do seem to work on a platform like Luna. So, when I think of Tomb Raider and some of the things we have on the roadmap, I get excited that that’s where we’re going to find real audience.”
Meanwhile…
The US games market generated $4.5 billion in June 2026, according to Circana. That’s a 21% decrease compared to June 2025. The decline is due to the fact that Nintendo Switch 2 launched in the previous June. Switch 2 sales are 79% lower than during its launch month. PS5 sales are also down 19%, while Xbox Series S and X revenue doubled.
UFC 6 was the best-selling game of June (revenue), whereas Meccha Chameleon was No.2. Meccha Chameleon sold four million units, Circana says. The indie game costs just $6.
For the first six months of the year, the US games market hit $27.5 billion, which is 1% down on 2025.Nintendo has asked the court to dismiss a lawsuit that demands it refunds players if it receives a tariff refund from the US Government. Nintendo raised the price of the original Switch last year, which was attributed to tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump. After the Supreme Court found that Trump didn’t have the power to do this, Nintendo (along with other companies) have sued the US Government for refunds. Two consumers have opted to sue Nintendo, saying that any refund should go to players. Nintendo lawyers said: “Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for”
After a wave of brutal lay-offs, Bethesda has moved to reassure fans (and the industry) that it is working on some major projects. The developer said that The Elder Scrolls 6 is progressing well, that Starfield remains an important part of its future, and that it is remastering classic Fallout games, namely Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. It also confirmed the existence of a new Fallout title from developer Obsidian (which went through its own wave of lay-offs). There will also be a big update to online game Fallout 76, and Fallout 5 has just entered pre-production.
Gamescom 2026 has completely sold out of exhibition space for the first time in its history. As a result, the organizers are looking to make the event bigger for 2027. This year’s Gamescom runs August 26 to August 30.
London Games Festival will run April 12 to April 19, 2027, with most of it taking place at a new central venue. The New Game Plus showcase event, the Games Finance Market, plus other networking and conferences, will take place at the Business Design Centre. Other events, including the BAFTA Game Awards, the Ensemble exhibition and Screen Play conference will take place at different venues.
Direct-to-consumer commerce specialist Neon has closed a $13 million Series A funding round, led by Krafton with participation from a16z, Griffin Gaming Partners, and Renegade Partners.
Joe Ziegler, the director of PlayStation and Bungie’s Marathon, has left the studio four months after the game’s launch. Marathon will now be led by Del Chafe III, who was previously assistant game director, alongside creative director Julia Nardin.
GameStop told Bloomberg that Sony killing disc-based games from January 2028 was ‘irrelevant’. CEO Ryan Cohen told the publication: “Software today makes up less than 12% of the business, and collectibles makes up over half the business. So, it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag: Resynced has now sold three million copies worldwide
Esports communications agency The Story Mob is expanding its remit to cover game publishers, consumer brands and tech companies. It’s also launched a consultancy called Play Makers, which will help brands understand gamer culture.
That’s it from us today! We’ll be back next week with more big interviews and stories. Until then, thank you for reading.
