Google Stadia

Here is an article on Google's recent rash of product shutdowns, and the negative effect it has on it's branding and future products, including Stadia. The article has a section on reporters asking questions about when Stadia will shut down, which is... not a good sign for a product that hasn't even launched yet.

Another reminder to be cautious about adopting Stadia.

Stadia Connect; Thursday, June 6th at 9 am PDT.^note 5 PM GMT, 2 am AET

Edited by tclittle on Jun 3rd 2019 at 11:40:50 AM

Isn't that right after the Pokémon Direct?

The Pokemon Direct is tomorrow. The Stadia Connect (almost called it Direct) is the day after.

Also, Capcom seems to be hinting at some new information during the Stadia Connect.

Oh yeah, Stadia is a thing.

Less than 10 minutes. Embedded stream:

Those internet speed numbers seem pretty bullshit.

What speed numbers?

"Stadia will work great, assuming the internet connection is flawless and you're down the hall from the processing center" - The laws of Physics.

Maybe they mentioned it on-stream but "those numbers" refers to the Stadia speedtest here which says a minimum of 10 Mbps is needed for it to run passably.

From the perspective of it being no different than streaming an actual livestream that makes sense. But it doesn't acknowledge the elephant in the room of input delay whatsoever.

Also my router is normally fast but frequently dips below that and boots devices whenever it wants so nyeh

Two Ars articles on Stadia:

Despite “revolutionary” promises, Stadia’s biz model is pure establishment

Google Stadia requires $130 upfront, $10 per month at November launch

Wait, you'll still have to purchase the games? And the Founder's Pack is mandatory to use at launch?

This is gonna crash and burn lol.

Edited by Karxrida on Jun 6th 2019 at 3:46:03 AM

This would be fine for turn-based games where latency (and potentially lower frame rate and resolution) isn't a massive issue, but playing any kind of action game will be a nightmare.

I remember getting to try On Live, and it sucked. Sure, the technology has improved, but...

• Increased internet bandwidth is offset by the greater expectations in resolution and framerate
• The speed of light hasn't changed, so input latency won't be better, unless you are physically located closer to the data center.

FWIW: I live in Arizona, and my On Live processing center would've been in California. I imagine my closest Google Stadia center to be about the same distance away.

While I'm very thankful for it either way (the less Stadia takes off the better), I can only wonder if the "you still purchase games individually" issue was one imprinted by game companies who are more than a little too rigid to just up and let people play their recent games for "free" (i.e. the cost of streaming.)

Also, as Ars noticed, potential buyers will have that reputation of Google ditching projects left and right to contend with. Are people willing to pay for a service and games that might not survive for more than a few years?

With systems like the X Box and Playstation, you can at least be sure that the games you bought will be playable indefinitely, and that they will continue to get customer support for many years.

The Doom Eternal demo on Stadia was apparently really promising.

It was probably under super ideal conditions.

Google won't confirm if you keep your games if the Stadia service ends.

Edited by Ghilz on Jul 25th 2019 at 12:45:50 PM

In other words, your games are all but doomed the moment you buy them.

Pretty much. If you could keep them after a shutdown, they would have said so.

The fact that they can't commit to an answer means the answer may as well be 'no'.

Man, I knew Google abandoned some projects, but I had no idea it was almost 200.

The response is ridiculous because ignore that you can, in fact, just download the files you have in most, if not all, other cloud google services. If they announced they would be discontinuing Gmail tomorrow, I could just go and save all the emails I want to keep. In that sense, Stadia is more comparable to other pure streaming services like Netflix. But not only Netflix is just plain better value, as if you have it you have access to all of its library, but also it is just not that hard to go around the system and save the files to your machine anyway. Unlike a movie or a song, you don't have to download the entirety of a game you are streaming, one would imagine, so to save it would be a lot harder.

So, in the matter of preservation and backup, Stadia is just plain worse than anything else I can think of. You literally have to hope Google keeps the servers forever or that someone find a way to illegally download whole games through the streaming. It is a lot harder, if not impossible, to just make your own backup.

Are you SURE you can just download the games from the cloud once you buy them? Because that sounds like a piracy nightmare to me if they allowed that. What is stopping anyone from burning a game to a DVD and giving it to someone else for free, then?

I highly doubt they will allow that.

And that's not even going into the whole point of the Stadia being that you DON'T download the game.

Edited by Redmess on Jul 26th 2019 at 10:51:06 AM

Welp, I'm now even more convinced to never try Stadia.

This is probably ultimately the whole point behind this thing. To keep full control over the game you bought, so they can stop you from sharing it and can take it away at a whim.

This whole console is basically the newest DRM scheme.