Microsoft’s xCloud is rapidly progressing through beta, Nvidia’s GeForce Now is taking off despite reticence from some publishers, and now it seems Amazon is working on something similar: Project Tempo

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Project Tempo Is Amazon Answer To Google Stadia And Microsoft xCloud

Amazon, as we are also seeing from the latest news that emerged in these hours, seems to want to launch with great conviction in the gaming market and in addition to the standard productions, it is also planning the next launch of a service of cloud gaming, called Project Tempo. News of Project Tempo is trickling as Amazon’s gaming efforts have started to actually come to fruition, even after years of high-profile developer turnover and occasional layoffs have made things look shaky from an outside perspective, at least. But both the shooter Crucible and the MMO New World are scheduled to launch next month, so we’re going to start seeing how these big projects are turning out soon.

Amazon, similar to Microsoft, can already count on a server infrastructure of considerable caliber, which puts it in an advantageous position to attempt the road of cloud gaming. The Amazon project is called, at least provisionally, Project Tempo, and in theory it should have been released already this year. There is still no precise release date and the plans do not have to change, but considering the current state of things it is very likely that the company will decide to move the launch of the service to 2021.

Amazon might have a slight edge over Stadia, in that it could potentially market Tempo in tandem with its Fire devices as a sort of console-but-not-really. Not to mention Amazon owns Twitch, probably the single biggest gaming-related time-sink in the world that’s not an actual game, so it’s got an “in” in the gaming world already.

Project Tempo would presumably work part and parcel with Amazon‘s in-house games, of which we know two are set to be released relatively soon: MMO New World and hero shooter Crucible. Both games sound like they’ve been born out of extensive focus-testing based on what works on Twitch New World to capture the World of Warcraft/FFXIV/Elder Scrolls Online set, and Crucible to appeal to the esports crowd. We also know the studio is working on a Lord of the Rings game in one of its multiple new studios.

Mike Frazzini, vice president for Amazon’s game and services, said:

“The big picture is about trying to take the best of Amazon and bringing it to games”

Frazzine also revealed that they have been working on the games for quite some time, and they are bringing “a lot of Amazon practices” into creating these games, but he did mention that it takes a long time to make them. The gaming world has become an enormous industry, expecting to reach a revenue of $160 billion in 2020 alone, making it twice as big as the global recorded music industry, which is only at around $19 billion.

Amazon has long been rumoured to be working on a Project xCloud and Google Stadia rival. Amazon already has a bit of gaming expertise with Twitch platform. The company also enjoys a strong ecosystem of Echo and Fire TV hardware making. Apart from a big consumer reach, Amazon is also a big player in the cloud with Amazon Web Services. Both Microsoft and Google leveraged their cloud infrastructure to launch the game streaming platforms.

It looks like the video game streaming market will get pretty crowded over the next year or two. Google launched Stadia in 2019, Nvidia’s GeForce Now is already out, and Microsoft is ramping up Project xCloud. Sony already has PlayStation Now, with the next-generation of consoles waiting in the wings. Now, Amazon and its deep pockets are set to enter the fray.