Google Stadia

[SpyderTracks]

For those that don't know, Google is launching Google Stadia on 19th November.

https://store.google.com/product/stadia

Google Stadia is streaming gameplay up to 4k 60Hz. They say for 4k you'll need a minimum of 35mbs download speeds.

You can stream to almost any device, TV, tablet, phone, PC, Laptop, almost anything. It even supports MOUSE AND KEYBOARD!!!! (for me that's the one reason I don't use consoles, just find controllers too damn slow).

Google Stadia will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland regions first, with more territories being added in 2020 and beyond.

The opening list of games are as follows:

• Assassin's Creed Odyssey
• Attack on Titan 2
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Borderlands 3
• Darksiders Genesis
• Destiny 2: The Collection
• Destroy All Humans
• Doom Eternal
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
• Elder Scrolls Online
• Farming Simulator 19
• Final Fantasy 15
• Football Manager 2020
• Get Packed
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• GRID
• Gylt
• Just Dance 2020
• Kine
• Metro Exodus
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Orcs Must Die! 3
• Rage 2
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Samurai Showdown
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Superhot
• The Division 2
• Thumper
• Tomb Raider
• Trials Rising
• Windjammers 2
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Latency is the biggest problem facing them, but Google say that with machine learning, they've managed to build a clever system that essentially predicts the users moves and adjusts the stream based on that. They claim that they'll be able to better the latency experience of someone playing at home on their local LAN.

Google wants to reduce Stadia lag with 'negative latency'

Plenty of gamers are skeptical about cloud-based gaming. Fast internet connections just aren't prevalent enough, the argument goes, and lag will kill the gameplay experience. Google is diving in head first with Stadia, though. In an interview with Edge, Stadia's VP of Engineering Madj Bakar said...

www.engadget.com

It looks set to be pretty interesting. To get in on release day, you have to have bought a premiere pack which includes controllers and other things. For the rest of us we'll have to wait a little longer. The premiere packs sold out worldwide within days so it does seem that demand is there if google can pull it off.

I've got a 5 year old gaming laptop which I'm not interested in upgrading because I now use it to stream over my LAN from my gaming PC which is relatively capable. The 4th Gen i7 is still totally capable for everyday uses and there's no need to bin it just yet if GPU performance isn't in the equation. If Google Stadia pays off, that completely renews my laptop for another good 5 years or so until the CPU starts getting too slow.

On the back of this, Steam have started developing their own streaming service, as well as Microsofts xCloud

Hands-on with Microsoft’s xCloud game streaming service

Early signs of promise, but more games needed

www.theverge.com

Valve appears to be working on a “Steam Cloud Gaming” service

Sounds like a natural expansion of Valve’s current “home PC” streaming offerings.

arstechnica.com

What are your thoughts? Has anyone bought a premiere pack? Anyone looking to use this?

 

[Dan79]

Though I haven't read much about it lately there seems to be a few issues regarding certain aspects of the service.

Paying a subscription and then purchasing a full price game and google having the power to pull access whenever they want. At launch only chromecast ultra will work wirelessly. (Not sure what can be connected by cable) and one review I read said those bottom end internet speeds do not give a smooth experience.

Personally, it's not a service I will use until its matured and might not disappear like other failed google offerings. However with pretty much all the major players looking into similar services I imagine it will have some future.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Though I haven't read much about it lately there seems to be a few issues regarding certain aspects of the service.

Paying a subscription and then purchasing a full price game and google having the power to pull access whenever they want. At launch only chromecast ultra will work wirelessly. (Not sure what can be connected by cable) and one review I read said those bottom end internet speeds do not give a smooth experience.

Personally, it's not a service I will use until its matured and might not disappear like other failed google offerings. However with pretty much all the major players looking into similar services I imagine it will have some future.

Totally agree on the hosted having control of the content. This is why I have my own personal media library, whilst I think stuff like Apple Music and Spotify or Netflix are very convenient, they’re poor quality and content often goes missing as they lose licensing rights.

It will be interesting to see how it develops.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Update on current perspective:

Google Stadia UK review – video game streaming becomes a reality

Google Stadia UK review – video game streaming becomes a reality

GameCentral reports on how exactly Google Stadia works in a normal UK home and whether it’s a must-have or an idea that’s not quite ready.

metro.co.uk

 

[Scott]

I've had a couple of NVidia Shield TVs pretty much since launch. They are absolutely fantastic for any sort of casual gaming. I use them to stream from my gaming PC to my TV as well and, for the most part, it's flawless.

For hardcore gaming there is a bit of latency but for casual it was a complete game changer for me (pardon the pun).

If they have indeed managed to curb the latency, at least better than the competition, then this will do very well IMO.

Gamestream from NVidia is free though, you buy the device and get access to a handsome amount of (older) content. I regularly play the Arkham series

 

[SpyderTracks]

I've had a couple of NVidia Shield TVs pretty much since launch. They are absolutely fantastic for any sort of casual gaming. I use them to stream from my gaming PC to my TV as well and, for the most part, it's flawless.

For hardcore gaming there is a bit of latency but for casual it was a complete game changer for me (pardon the pun).

If they have indeed managed to curb the latency, at least better than the competition, then this will do very well IMO.

Gamestream from NVidia is free though, you buy the device and get access to a handsome amount of (older) content. I regularly play the Arkham series

Hmmm, just going through some reviews now and it’s not looking terribly healthy.

Apparently on mobile it’s pretty impressive, but PC and TV have some serious lag.

They added an extra 10 games to the catalogue for launch though as soon as Microsoft announced their catalogue would be over 50, thank god for competition.

Obviously it’s very early days and hopefully these things will iron out. If the AI that controls the “negative latency” as google are calling it (rediculous if you ask me) is effective, it will need some time with user play through to enhance, so fingers crossed.

I do think MS stand a better chance at this with xcloud, they’re just much more experienced in the gaming world.

 

[SpyderTracks]

P.S... I love the Arkham games!!!! So good!

 

[Scott]

Shield is nowhere near that laggy

 

[SpyderTracks]

Further review from Gamers Nexus...

Aside from the pre order issues, it really doesn't look too good atm:

 

[SpyderTracks]

For those keeping up with these things, Stadia has been officially announced as Dead by Google in the consumer space, it will be continuing in as a corporate endeavour.

Official closing day is January 18th 2023, and weirdly, so long as bought from Googles store, they will be fully refunding any hardware AND game purchases made since it opened!

Google Stadia is dead, what went wrong?

First to market, with impressive tech, Stadia never reached its potential

www.nme.com

I think for me, from what I'm seeing although I don't myself do any cloud gaming, but it does appear that NVidia GeForce Now is the one to beat, although Valve are apparently close to entering this space which could really upset the status quo.

Steam Cloud Play (Beta) (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

 

[AccidentalDenz]

For those keeping up with these things, Stadia has been officially announced as Dead by Google in the consumer space, it will be continuing in as a corporate endeavour.

Official closing day is January 18th 2023, and weirdly, so long as bought from Googles store, they will be fully refunding any hardware AND game purchases made since it opened!

Google Stadia is dead, what went wrong?

First to market, with impressive tech, Stadia never reached its potential

www.nme.com

I think for me, from what I'm seeing although I don't myself do any cloud gaming, but it does appear that NVidia GeForce Now is the one to beat, although Valve are apparently close to entering this space which could really upset the status quo.

Steam Cloud Play (Beta) (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

I tried GeForce Now as I got a membership along with my GPU and it was decent enough. My internet is a bit pants though, there were latency issues which could have been either my internet or their servers. I know Michael/Bellular Games has said that Stadia and similar streaming services are fine for some game types, but not for games where latency has to be minimised as much as possible.

 

[AgentCooper]

For those keeping up with these things, Stadia has been officially announced as Dead by Google in the consumer space, it will be continuing in as a corporate endeavour.

Official closing day is January 18th 2023, and weirdly, so long as bought from Googles store, they will be fully refunding any hardware AND game purchases made since it opened!

Google Stadia is dead, what went wrong?

First to market, with impressive tech, Stadia never reached its potential

www.nme.com

I think for me, from what I'm seeing although I don't myself do any cloud gaming, but it does appear that NVidia GeForce Now is the one to beat, although Valve are apparently close to entering this space which could really upset the status quo.

Steam Cloud Play (Beta) (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

I read about this earlier in the week but was too covered in milky baby vomit to pipe up at the time. It’s come as no surprise, Google really needed to come out with intent and highlight the power of their servers: if you’ve got half decent internet, we won’t let you down.

If they’d also acquired a decent catalog of games people actually wanted to play and a worthwhile subscription model they’d have been onto something. GTA 5 is almost a decade old and is still being rinsed to death, if they’d have only got that game and it’s online platform up and running smoothly it’d have been a real statement of intent.

Instead, it’s gone down like a fart in a spacesuit. An unpleasant experience that has backfired on the creator.

 

[SpyderTracks]

They said something really interesting in that Bellular video which I think is spot on:

Google make excellent Tools, but poor Products.

The only products they've managed to keep alive long term are YouTube (which was bought out fully fledged in 2006) and the Pixel mobile range.

If you look at almost any actual product it's pretty abysmal

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

 

[Martinr36]

They said something really interesting in that Bellular video which I think is spot on:

Google make excellent Tools, but poor Products.

The only products they've managed to keep alive long term are YouTube (which was bought out fully fledged in 2006) and the Pixel mobile range.

If you look at almost any actual product it's pretty abysmal

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

I made some very good friends on Google+, and was on there from the late days of the beta, till it was shut down, best social media platform I've used.

 

[RobMc]

Google Play Music I can't forgive them for. I'd uploaded so much music that you just can't get via Spotify et al, meticulously cleaned up the tags, genres artwork et al and they just moved the service over to YouTube Music, a shambles of a music platform. Now I can no longer share my old DJ Mixes or recordings of live gigs, even with other YouTube Premium subscribers, and if I want to download even one Mp3 FROM MY OWN UPLOADED LIBRARY the only way is to download my Google everything via Google Takeout. With my Drive and Gmail contents that's nearly 100Gb of Data!

Google Home/Nest is a similar mess. Routines are gone to the dogs, controlling speaker groups is a hassle, and you can sense less and less dev resources are allocated to it. Their butchering of Android TV is another one that leaves a bad taste in the mouth; my Nvidia Shield TV is a premium streamer where 1/3 of the home page real estate is now ads.

Stadia is worse again though because there's hardware being made obsolete also - publishers, creators and consumers will be wise to be early adaptors of any new Google products IMO..

 

[Scott]

Totally agree on Play Music. That platform was absolutely fantastic and I showed it off to everyone. I always found it strange that Google didn't ever seem to promote their offerings. So few people even knew that Play Music existed, let alone used it.