Amazon’s head of gaming, Jeff Gattis, has predicted a shift in how people play video games, arguing that rising hardware costs will lead more players to abandon traditional consoles and high-end PCs in favor of cloud streaming. In an interview with the BBC, Gattis said the escalating price of dedicated gaming devices is making many question whether they still need them at all.
“There are somewhere between two-and-a-half and three billion people who play games around the world, but only a fraction of those own dedicated gaming hardware,” Gattis explained. Streaming, he argued, offers a practical alternative for the vast majority who do not want to spend hundreds—or potentially thousands—of pounds or dollars on a console or gaming PC. “As hardware becomes more expensive, and as streaming technology continues to improve, I think you’ll naturally see more people asking whether they actually need that dedicated device.”
Gattis, a former Xbox executive who now oversees Amazon’s gaming operations including the Luna cloud service and Amazon Game Studios, made the comments as the company rolled out a significant update to its entertainment ecosystem. Amazon has integrated Luna directly into the Prime Video app, adding a dedicated “Games” tab that sits alongside movies, series, and live TV. The feature launched first on Fire TV devices in the United States and United Kingdom, allowing Prime members to stream games without switching apps or owning specialized hardware. Titles appear in a familiar interface, and players can use a controller or even a smartphone as an input device.
The timing is deliberate. Console prices have climbed steadily in recent years, driven by soaring component costs, particularly memory and storage. In mid-2026, Microsoft announced further price increases for its Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, raising 512 GB models by $100 and 1 TB models by $150 effective August 1. The company cited storage and memory prices that had already risen more than 2.5 times and were expected to double again by fall 2027. Valve’s Steam Machine, a living-room PC aimed at competing with traditional consoles, has been priced starting around $1,000 or higher depending on configuration. Analysts have warned that the next generation of PlayStation and Xbox hardware could easily clear the $1,000 mark if current trends continue, with some projections placing the floor even higher.
Gattis has pointed to this trajectory in other interviews as well. He recalled that only a few years earlier, an Xbox Series S could be found on holiday discount for about $199. “To think in a span of two to three years we’ve gone from $200 to what’s likely going to be six, seven times that price,” he said. He described the situation as a “RAM crisis” unlikely to resolve quickly. While he stressed that Amazon’s strategy is not built on forcing players to abandon consoles—“Our business model is not really predicated on this massive shift where everybody turns in their consoles and PCs and comes over to cloud”—he acknowledged that higher prices create a natural tailwind for streaming services.
Amazon’s approach leans heavily on its existing Prime subscriber base. Luna is included with a standard Prime membership in supported regions, meaning tens of millions of households already have access without an extra monthly fee. Gattis has previously described this arrangement as potentially making Amazon “the largest paid gaming subscription in the world,” even if many subscribers remain unaware of the benefit. By embedding games inside the Prime Video experience, the company hopes to solve a discovery problem that has long hampered cloud gaming.
Cloud gaming itself is not new, and its history is littered with high-profile disappointments. Google’s Stadia launched with ambitious claims of being a “Netflix for games” but shut down in 2023 after failing to attract enough users or secure long-term publisher support. Other services, including Xbox Cloud Gaming, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and earlier experiments, have improved significantly in visual quality and reliability, yet latency, inconsistent broadband performance, and the need for stable high-speed internet continue to limit mass adoption. Competitive multiplayer titles remain particularly sensitive to even modest input lag. Many high-end games also still feel best with a proper controller rather than a phone or basic remote.
Industry observers remain cautious. Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief of The Game Business, has noted that while there is likely an audience of players interested in major upcoming releases such as Grand Theft Auto 6 who are put off by technical requirements or high hardware costs, streaming still faces practical barriers. Publishers often prefer traditional retail and digital sales models that generate higher per-unit revenue than pure subscription or streaming arrangements. Joost van Dreunen, a professor of games business at NYU Stern, has observed that consoles are becoming more expensive toward the end of their lifecycle for the first time in industry history—an unusual reversal. He expects gradual rather than sudden adoption of alternatives.
Despite these challenges, the economic pressure on hardware is real and growing. Consoles have traditionally been sold at or near cost, with profits coming from software, accessories, and services. When component prices surge, manufacturers have little choice but to raise retail prices or absorb losses. For many households, especially those outside the core enthusiast market, spending $800 to $1,500 on a single-purpose device becomes harder to justify when a capable smartphone, tablet, laptop, or smart TV is already in the home.
Amazon is positioning Luna as a convenient option rather than a full replacement. The service supports a growing library that includes both established hits and Amazon’s own experiments with party-style and lighter experiences designed for shared living-room play. Phone-as-controller features and zero-download streaming lower the barrier for casual players who might never buy a dedicated console. At the same time, serious gamers who value maximum performance, offline play, or the lowest possible latency are unlikely to abandon their PCs or consoles anytime soon.
The broader industry is watching closely. Sony and Microsoft continue to invest heavily in their ecosystems, including their own streaming offerings, while also preparing for the next generation of hardware. Valve’s Steam Machine represents another attempt to bring high-end PC gaming into the living room at a premium price. Meanwhile, the sheer number of people who already play games on phones, browsers, or older devices suggests a large latent market for accessible, high-quality experiences that do not require new hardware purchases.
Gattis’s comments reflect a pragmatic view of where technology and economics are heading. Streaming will not eliminate consoles overnight, and dedicated hardware will remain essential for many players and many types of games. Yet as the cost of that hardware continues to climb and internet infrastructure slowly improves, a growing share of the global audience may decide that a dedicated box under the television is no longer necessary. For Amazon, the opportunity lies in meeting those players where they already are—inside the apps and devices they use every day—rather than asking them to buy something new. Whether that vision scales into a true mass-market alternative will depend on continued technical progress, publisher participation, and the simple question of how much people are willing to pay for the privilege of playing.
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