In April, Amazon's secretive cloud gaming service had a rumored release of next year

But it looks like Bezos contracted FOMO after seeing the rest of FAMGA hop on the hype train, and let Luna loose

Here's the latest on FAMGA's cloud gaming moves, broken down by company (thread)

1/ Google launched its cloud gaming service, Stadia, last year

It's still suffering from its teraflopped launch (laggy + limited library + weird rollout)

2/ Apple filed a patent for "Enabling Interactive Service for Cloud Rendering Gaming in 5G Systems" to which everyone went

They might not follow through, but...

It's a bright red antitrust flag when they make it annoying af for other services to get on the App Store

3/ Microsoft threw its controller in the ring on Tuesday, Sept. 15 by debuting xCloud on Android

It's wrapped into their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription so I, and many others, already have it

(even if I can't use it bc I have an iPhone)

4/ Facebook acquired cloud gaming startup PlayGiga last year, but Zuck's not likely to launch a standalone service

Instead, FB's partnered up with Microsoft to integrate xCloud into its Twitch-like content hub, Facebook Gaming

5/ It's worth noting that FAMGA is far from a) alone and b) first in the cloud gaming space

Big Tech just has an infrastructural advantage (dark fiber! data centers!) over most other services

6/ The main way this streaming war will be decided: who has the best games

Looking ahead...Expect some major M&A and partnership news to that ^ end (like Microsoft's recent acquisition of Bethesda)

7/ Read more in my already-somehow-slightly-outdated article about what cloud gaming is, and why tech is more psyched about cloud gaming than an early-aughts teen was about layered camis... https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2020/09/10/cloud-gaming-big-tech-streaming-wars.html