According to the head of Amazon Gaming, the rising cost of hardware could draw attention to the company’s cloud service.

The RAMpocalypse and the obscene price hikes it has triggered are unpleasant for almost everyone. However, Jeffrey Gattis, the head of Amazon Gaming, might not be so badly affected. In an interview with The Game Business, he stated that high hardware prices could be good for Luna, the company’s cloud-based gaming division. Cloud gaming has largely been seen as a solution in search of a problem, mainly because of the relatively low prices of gaming consoles. This is precisely why Amazon’s goal with Luna was not to replace consoles but to make gaming accessible to those who aren’t interested in purchasing the necessary hardware for whatever reason. Given the current price trends, Gattis believes that this demographic will likely grow, and this growth represents a significant opportunity.

A few years ago, Amazon threw itself headlong into the mainstream gaming industry. Despite having virtually unlimited financial resources, however, it was never able to achieve a major breakthrough. Its biggest success was the MMO New World, but even that wasn’t big enough to survive when Amazon decided to shut it down. Now, however, Gattis says that Amazon knows exactly what it’s doing. He says Amazon is striving to encourage as many publishers as possible to upload their games to Luna. As part of this effort, Amazon needs to convince publishers that this won’t cannibalize traditional sales. This aligns with Gattis’s belief that high hardware prices could give the platform a boost.

“We saw the Steam Machine launch at $1,000. Because of the RAM crisis, we’ve heard rumors that Gen 10 consoles will cost over $1,000. So, I think we’ll reach a point where more people will consider a cloud gaming solution because of the high cost of buying dedicated hardware. Games can be a significant investment: buying a $70 game, going through the download process, pairing a controller, and, in some cases, spending hundreds of hours completing it. We see an opportunity to serve people who haven’t been well served because console and PC companies mostly focus on hardcore players.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like we have a unified gaming strategy. We understand what we’re doing and what we’re not doing, and we’re acting accordingly. Time will tell how well we execute the plan and how accurate our thesis is. The reality is, at least the message we keep repeating, and it is the truth, that our goal is to reach players that many of those games never will. This is particularly true in a world of $1,000 consoles,” said Gattis.

The steep rise in hardware prices is driving some people away from traditional PC and console games. To a certain extent, this will give Luna a boost, depending largely on how effectively it can fill that gap. But if Google Stadia failed, how will Amazon Luna be any different?

Source: PCGamer, The Game Business