Google makes official statement in regards to disappointment over visual fidelity of Stadia games
The ongoing debacle over Google's streaming service continues, as customers express discontent over the visual fidelity of their streamed games. Prior to the launch of Stadia, VP and general manager of Google, Phil Harrison, had boldly claimed that, "yes, all games at launch support 4K. [...] We want all games to play 4K/60 but sometimes for artistic reasons, a game is 4K/30 so Stadia always streams at 4K/60 via 2x encode". When the service launched, however, many noticed that those claims didn't turn out to be entirely true.
Eurogamer and Digital Foundry discovered that Destiny 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2, both of which are considered as a huge draw to the service, never manage to run at 4K resolution. the latter is rendered at 1440p at maximum, and is then upscaled, while the former is rendered at 1080p, and is upscaled as well.
In press conferences and during the reveal of Stadia itself, Google had drawn attention to the fact that their service would offer better graphical performance than both the PlayStation 4 Pro and the Xbox One X combined, but when put to the test, either console provides a better picture quality for Red Dead Redemption 2 over Stadia. Google offered a response to the lingering questions as to why the quality isn't exactly as advertised, which can be seen in the following quote.
In short, Google states that the rendered graphics of its streamed titles will improve with time, and do indeed output at 4K resolution, even if it is upscaled. This creates a large disconnect from the pre-release promotion, which had promised something a little different.
SourceTags: [PLATFORM=/platform/stadia]Google Stadia[/PLATFORM]
