I put two streaming giants back to back.
I recently ordered and received an Amazon Luna controller and I wanted to do a quick comparison of the two services. For you, my readers. Because I invest my money wisely and because I love you all. To more directly compare the two, I ran the same hard mode mission on The Division 2 and paid close attention to how both games felt. Both were done using the PC with Stadia on browser and Luna on the app.
First a quick comparison of the controllers. Both the Stadia and Luna controllers have that fat, girthy look that makes them closer to the Xbox One than the PlayStation 4 controller in terms of shape. Of notable difference between the two is that Luna’s controller has a closer design to the Xbox One in the sense that both have their left joystick above the d-pad, as opposed to the Stadia controller which places the joystick below the d-pad. The Amazon Luna controller also uses two AA batteries just like Xbox while the Stadia uses a built-in rechargeable.
The Amazon controller comes with Amazon brand batteries. It should also be noted that you are under no obligation to use either official controller with the service. Both Stadia and Luna work with pretty much any controller you connect provided it isn’t some off-brand USB NES controller you bought on Wish.com. In fact it might work with that too.
I actually like the Stadia controller more than the Luna. The Stadia controller fits more snugly in my hands and I had an issue where I was constantly accidentally hitting the right bumper button on the Luna. The Luna controller has grit on the back meant to provide some kind of grip, but it just kinda feels like the controller is dirty.
The Luna controller is a bit chonkier than Stadia by about a half an ounce, both being over nine ounces. The two controllers still weigh less than the Xbox Series S at 10.5 ounces and heftier than the PS4 controller at 7.5 ounces. Why did I weigh the controllers? Moving on…
First off I’d like to note that I ended up using a wired Xbox controller for this playthrough. The Stadia controller is normally fine but it is completely nonfunctional on a computer hooked up via ethernet to your network. Wired, exactly how you should be playing Stadia when using it at home. The controller can’t connect wirelessly for some reason and can’t be detected when wired. I tried checking out Stadia’s customer support who are completely useless on troubleshooting issues. The controller did work when the computer was connected via wifi but since my computer’s wifi adapter isn’t good I didn’t want to be streaming games over it.
Now I am on Stadia’s free version with my games connected via Ubisoft+, so The Division 2 can only run at a maximum of 1080p. Considering my monitor is a 1080p display this won’t be a problem when comparing quality to Luna.
Obviously everything I say going forward is going to be subjective, but I have never really had any issues with Stadia in terms of performance. I have warned people against buying games for Stadia because of Google’s history of treating its commercial products like casual hobbies to be discarded when bored. But if you have Ubisoft+, you can play those games on Stadia at no additional cost. It basically gives you a way to gauge the service without having to pay upfront.
My time in The Division 2 was fine. The server I was on was able to keep a steady flow of data and I didn’t notice any artifacting on the video feed. I kept my eyes open for any indication of latency issues and didn’t find any to speak of.
The biggest issue I had with The Division 2 was that the game didn’t look great. Considering Google flaunts their big macho servers and how they can do so much better, I noticed a lot of texture pop-in while play The Division 2. It’s clearly not an issue with the video feed, but an issue with the game’s optimization. Now this may be Ubisoft, or it may be Google, I don’t know.
Secondary is that the tiny latency is much more noticeable when trying to do fine movements. The Division 2 has characters that have weak spots to shoot for bonus damage/effects. I tried to hit these as much as possible to see if it was more difficult on Stadia/Luna. You can definitely feel the miniscule input lag when trying to aim at a satchel hanging at someone’s side while they run across the screen.
I have used the Stadia controller with the Chromecast Ultra and can say that it doesn’t have problems there. It’s disappointing that Google’s support for its browser version is so shoddy by comparison.
Unlike Stadia, Luna has a direct Windows app that I can download and play with. They also have an app compatible with my Toshiba FireTV television. The controller they sent out can be preconfigured to be linked to your Luna account so you can open it up and pop the batteries in with no additional setup needed. It’s pretty damn convenient.
This is going to go a little differently than I expected. The previous three times I booted up Luna to play The Division 2 the game popped up in a severely letterboxed format. Thinking something was wrong with the resolution, I opened up the settings and the game just flat out crashed. Every single time. This time Amazon evidently knew I was recording to do a test so the game worked fine and displayed fine.
One thing I will note about Luna over Stadia is that the controller felt like it was more fine-tuned than on Stadia. Maybe it’s because I was using a controller hooked directly to wifi instead of running through a cable to the computer then through the internet, but I did notice the Luna controller felt more capable of getting off potshots and making more precise shots than the Stadia did.
Visually I would say both games are pretty indistinct. The Luna version does allow you to change the graphics settings and I found my copy was set to “medium” level. Turning it up to ultra and restarting the game didn’t make it look any better, but rather it caused the game to look roughly the same only with textures taking even longer to pop in. It’s likely that Amazon’s servers are set up to override those options, but the game looked kinda crappy on both systems considering this is supposed to be a powerhouse build better than anything my computer can handle.
I did check out the Luna app on my TV and it is a pile of crap. It looks fine but the audio is way out of sync and the game doesn’t play right. I have a feeling that running the game over wifi on the 5g signal might be the cause of it, or it might be that TV apps are generally the worst tier of programming.
In Conclusion…
Stadia is obviously the easiest of the two to get into right now, since you can load up Destiny 2 and see how your network can handle it. As far as services go, both seem equally competent based on my experience. Stadia does have the benefit of its free tier, however you do have to pay for most of the non-pro games on the service. Luna meanwhile looks like it will have a much more massive library available for whatever the monthly fee will be.
Since Luna is looking at the bigger and more robust library with its subscription service, I think Amazon is going to come out on top in this war as the best value. But that will be a piece for another day.
MMO Fallout 