Does the future of gaming lie in streaming? Google surely thinks so and is betting heavily on it. As scheduled, the company provided details about its platform ahead of E3 during its first Stadia Connect streamed today.

Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1136705564539465729
​

The D Day is sometime in November of this year, when $129 will get you a Stadia Founder's Edition that comes bundled with an exclusive Night Blue Stadia Controller, a Google Chromecast Ultra for streaming to your TV, Destiny 2: The Collection, an exclusive Founder’s Stadia Name, and three months of Stadia Pro without charge for yourself, and three months of Stadia Pro to give away to a friend. With this bundle you can play across laptops, desktops, Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a2 with cross-screen early access from day one.

Note that the Founder Edition bundle is the only way to access Stadia this year. Other subscription services will open up in 2020. Stadia Pro, which is what you get with the Founder's Edition, is priced at $9.99 per month, allows you to play games up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second with HDR and 5.1 surround sound. The free Stadia Base service which launches next year allows you to buy and keep games capped at 1080p and 60 frames per second with stereo sound but does not allow you to access games for free nor get special discounts which Pro subscribers can enjoy. The controler alone costs $69.

Regarding connectivity requirements, Google claims that "Stadia works across various connections from 35 Mbps down to a recommended minimum of 10 Mbps" and the platform with match resolution from 4K to 720p according to your network’s speed. Here's a nice infographic for that:

As for games, Google announced the following today, with more to come in the future:

• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2,​
• Doom Eternal, Doom (2016)​
• Rage 2, The Elder Scrolls Online​
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood​
• Destiny 2​
• Get Packed​
• Grid​
• Metro Exodus​
• Thumper​
• Farming Simulator 19​
• Baldur's Gate 3​
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid​
• Football Manager​
• Samurai Shodown​
• Final Fantasy XV​
• Tomb Raider Definitive Edition​
• Rise of the Tomb Raider​
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider​
• NBA 2K​
• Borderlands 3​
• Gylt​
• Mortal Kombat 11​
• Darksiders Genesis​
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey​
• Just Dance​
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint​
• Tom Clancy's The Division 2​
• Trials Rising​
• The Crew 2​

At launch the Stadia platform will be available in the following 14 countries: US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

The service will be accessible via a Chromecast Ultra, a regular Chrome browser on any computer, or a Pixel 3/3a smartphone, with support for more smartphones planned in the future.

What do you think of the Stadia after the announcement? Will you be subscribing for a Founder's Edition or you will wait and see how it fares?

SOURCE​

 

[jmrodrigues]

The only way this can be successful, is a service with minimum lag, and have something like netflix, all the content can be accessed with a subscription. If they are going to charge for each game, there's no advantage towards having a console (only the disadvantage of input lag and a constant internet connection), it will be doomed really soon.

 

[orangy57]

wait so 130 bucks, plus 10 bucks a month, plus the cost of each game, and input lag?

dude this suuucks

 

[KoalaityTV]

wait so 130 bucks, plus 10 bucks a month, plus the cost of each game, and input lag?

dude this suuucks

That's for the TV, apparently you can just use your browser on a PC. I don't think companies understand this isn't Spotify or Netflix however. A game library that is local is ideal for preservation. Plus, audio and video can have latency, but games cannot.

 

[x65943]

I can think of many people this wouldn't work for:
- People in the middle of nowhere
- Speedrunners
- Offline players
- PC players (edit: sorry I didn't watch the video, it was an assumption from the images provided)
- Nintendo fans
- Pixel purists
- High precision FPS players
- People who like to future-proof their purchases.

Here is a little bit of an explanation:
People in the middle of nowhere or rural areas usually have a poor internet connection, speed runners rely on VERY low latency, this is not a PC solution, there are no Nintendo games, people who are pixel purists would likely encounter artifacts, high precision FPS players would likely encounter the same problem as speed runners, and last but not least, these services do not last for ever. Imagine the Wii Shop shutdown but with literally all of your games, and it rendering an entire console useless. It would basically be BRICKED.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Not the same way you are streaming games here. This is a console that streams games from someone else's computer. The entire image is compressed and sent over the internet, unlike normal online play. With normal online play all of the resources are on the hardware and it is being rendered locally, the only thing that is online are player positions, actions, etc.
NOTE: This is probably not the best way to explain it, but just know that there is a big difference.

I imagine if the platform completely shut down Google would most likely refund purchases.

Google seems to be in it for the long haul. I think they plan to push this idea until it works.

 

[KingVamp]

This would be more convincing, if the games you buy are tied to a digital service like Steam. At least then you could play offline.

wait so 130 bucks, plus 10 bucks a month, plus the cost of each game, and input lag?

dude this suuucks

Tbf, you don't need to buy all of this.

 

[Deleted User]

No thanks. If this is the future of Videogames then I will stick to Let´s plays on Youtube!

 

[Glitchk0ud1001]

jejeje My computer with 20megs internet got stuttered or freeze with 1080p on you tube

 

[kevin corms]

I was going to go on another rant, but screw it. Im just going to say boo to stadia and be done with it.

 

[DANTENDO]

jejeje My computer with 20megs internet got stuttered or freeze with 1080p on you tube

PC infected

 

[LoganK93]

Will they be putting Google fiber in more locations then? Because the internet in my area can barely stream Netflix.

 

[kevin corms]

As much as most people will disagree, I really don't like much above 60-80fps. It makes everything look/feel (imo) the same as the "soap opera effect" when people turn on the stupid motion enhancement feature on their television when watching movies/tv. But I do completely understand your point regardless.

the soap opera effect comes from frame interpolation, not high framerates. Spanish soap operas used to be filmed at real low framerates and used interpolation to get up to 30 fps, hence the term.

 

[Nudu]

Dragonballllll!!!!!!!!!!! chala head chala

 

[kevin corms]

Kinda silly they make "no waiting for downloads" a selling point, when the speeds required make waiting for downloads much less tedious.

Google will say anything at all, and they will use their information monopoly to make people believe it if they can.

 

[Xzi]

Will they be putting Google fiber in more locations then? Because the internet in my area can barely stream Netflix.

That's the number one reason it'll flop. Broadband coverage is terrible in the US outside of big cities.

 

[kevin corms]

Wow, a line-up of games that you can get on just about any other system. It's literally just a Shield TV that can't run anything natively. I hope this shit flops hard, and it probably will.

I expect a bunch of fools to try it out at first, but atleast the chromecast isnt a bad product.

 

[cherryduck]

Hang on, so this is a streaming service, but you still have to buy the games? That's like if Netflix charged you for everything you watched. Hell nah. If it was just the subscription charge then maybe I'd be interested but what's the point if you already own a console or gaming PC. Imagine if you bought a console and you had to pay every month just to keep access to the games you've already bought. That is not reasonable at all, unless I'm completely misunderstanding this.

 

[cottonMOUSE]

You gotta think of it like a Hardware Platform crossed with a Storefront. Imagine that this is a console, let's call it... "Creamdast".

So you have to buy the Creamdast, and then you buy games for it, right?

Except now you never have to buy the platform, it's actually free in its base form. And you can 'connect it' to any screen you own that can run Chrome. So you just buy games for it.

 

[kevin corms]

Hang on, so this is a streaming service, but you still have to buy the games? That's like if Netflix charged you for everything you watched. Hell nah. If it was just the subscription charge then maybe I'd be interested but what's the point if you already own a console or gaming PC. Imagine if you bought a console and you had to pay every month just to keep access to the games you've already bought. That is not reasonable at all, unless I'm completely misunderstanding this.

You can just buy the game, but you are limited to 1080p if you dont subscribe. the idea makes very little sense though, why run games server side when socs are getting so powerful that in the near future you could potentially game with the specs of a tv? Its like some know nothing thinks its just like video streaming, but video streaming is all processed on the users end.

 

[linuxares]

But what about the latency?

 

[chartube12]

People are confused. I think you can choose to buy the games and play them from the cloud for free. Or you can choose to pay a monthly fee and play as many as you want. However while you have the monthly service, you can buy the games at a slight discount. Than if you ever cancel the sub, you can still play the game you bought. This is exactly how xbox’s Game pass works. Only difference at this time is, Xbox you download the full game and with google you don’t!