Google Stadia
It's Game Streaming. Again.
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Not really sure how "you don't need to upgrade your console to play these games" is a particularly compelling pitch when all of the games they are offering run fine on existing consoles (some even run fine on previous gen consoles).
I think when you look at the pricing it still doesn't really make sense - like sure, I get that people will probably find it easier to pay only $9.99 a month rather than $400 upfront, but $9.99 over 5 years is $600 and realistically, buying games through the online stores usually tends to be more expensive than picking it up at Tesco on launch day, or a few weeks down the line at CEX. That extra $200 would get you your 5 years of Live Gold too, so you'll still be getting the "free" games google said it would include with their subscription?

I can very much see the appeal for people with only 1080p TVs - since you don't need to pay the subscription for that. But assuming we're talking about people that want that 4k experience, for a comparable experience to next gen consoles (assuming at least 4k60 in next gen) you could end up paying more thanks to the online store game costs, and you could lose it all at the drop of a hat.
I love that Google said "If you subscribe to Stadia Pro you get one game a month included in the subscription, more or less".

"one game"

"more or less"

I'm very curious to see what happens in the months that it's less that one game.
'Google Delayedia'

Why are they launching it when so much stuff flat out isn't ready yet? I mean, it's Google, so it's not like they need the money.

Because Microsoft and others will eat their lunch if they wait too long.
But if you launch something that's crap and incomplete, no one will buy it anyway, and just remember that it's crap.
Don't tell me that, tell Phil Harrison.

Although you'd have thought he'd have learned that from his work on the PS3 launch and the Xbox One launch, which he had key roles in.
Ooohhh the vaseline special effects are back from OnLive too.

Attachment:
vassers.JPG
All you need to know about stadia in one simple gif

https://twitter.com/GenePark/status/1196488999524802562


In fairness isn't he on a work network so probably going through a load of firewalls and stuff?

Either way the whole thing is borked IMO. We've gone from:

SEE A GAME ON YOUTUBE YOU LIKE? JUST PRESS PLAY NOW AND THE GAME WILL MAGICALLY START ON WHATEVER DEVICE YOU OWN, FOR FREE!

To:

Pay too much to buy old games on a service you also have to pay a subscription for, and have to buy hardware for, with shit image quality, increased input lag, and the baked in Google probability that we'll likely just turn the whole thing off in a couple of years anyway. Oh yes, and you'd better have a really good internet connection that has no data caps, fair usage policy, or anyone else trying to use it for anything else at the same time. And you're not remotely interested in the next XBox or Playstation either, are you?
It's a baffling launch, for sure.
That lag is pretty shocking though. I lashed together a Frankenstein way of streaming xbox games to work from home through a VPN and it wasn't as laggy as that.
I’m sure they’ll sort it all out.
When I was 40 years old. I read a very good thread. I read a very good thread I found on Twitter TV. My name was Brian McGarckus. I stayed up listening to Carcass. When I was 40.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1196557401710837762
Dimrill wrote:
When I was 40 years old. I read a very good thread. I read a very good thread I found on Twitter TV. My name was Brian McGarckus. I stayed up listening to Carcass. When I was 40.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1196557401710837762


That is a good read.

Gonna install a SunRay in the office, bedroom and lounge.
I'm genuinely at a loss to understand how Stadia is for now, certainly in its current form.

Maybe it'll look more interesting next year when the free tier is released, but by then Gamepass/XCloud will be dumping all over it from a great height.

It wouldn't surprise me if MS did a last big push with a new cheaper XB1 SKU as well, just to hammer the nails into the coffin.
I'm at a point in life where I don't play PS4 enough to justify buying into the next generation. Therefore I can just about see a use-case for me. But that's based on it delivering a gameplay experience that isn't as frustrating as hell, with sensible pricing for games (or enough decent freebie games included.)
Findus Fop wrote:
I'm at a point in life where I don't play PS4 enough to justify buying into the next generation. Therefore I can just about see a use-case for me. But that's based on it delivering a gameplay experience that isn't as frustrating as hell, with sensible pricing for games (or enough decent freebie games included.)


You'd still be essentially paying for the 'console' itself through the subscription so over a given amount of time it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper than buying a PS5. The price for the individual games then becomes an important deciding factor, as you allude to yourself, but without physical discs to create a second hand market I can't see it being cheaper than the PS5 (assuming you're happy to wait a bit for a given game to come down in price a bit rather than buying day one).

But you also need to give some thought to choice. All cross-platform games will come out on the PS5; I can't foresee all of them hitting Stadia given the porting work required for each one. Then there's exclusives, something Sony traditionally do incredibly well with and Google will never compete at.
https://twitter.com/olafurw/status/1197079572690472961


It's not like Google don't have that information already. This will just confirm
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.
Grim... wrote:
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.

Xenophobes
Could be worse, could be a list of screen names for 86 different Google chat apps
Bamba wrote:
Findus Fop wrote:
I'm at a point in life where I don't play PS4 enough to justify buying into the next generation. Therefore I can just about see a use-case for me. But that's based on it delivering a gameplay experience that isn't as frustrating as hell, with sensible pricing for games (or enough decent freebie games included.)


You'd still be essentially paying for the 'console' itself through the subscription so over a given amount of time it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper than buying a PS5. The price for the individual games then becomes an important deciding factor, as you allude to yourself, but without physical discs to create a second hand market I can't see it being cheaper than the PS5 (assuming you're happy to wait a bit for a given game to come down in price a bit rather than buying day one).

But you also need to give some thought to choice. All cross-platform games will come out on the PS5; I can't foresee all of them hitting Stadia given the porting work required for each one. Then there's exclusives, something Sony traditionally do incredibly well with and Google will never compete at.


Bamba wrote:
Findus Fop wrote:
I'm at a point in life where I don't play PS4 enough to justify buying into the next generation. Therefore I can just about see a use-case for me. But that's based on it delivering a gameplay experience that isn't as frustrating as hell, with sensible pricing for games (or enough decent freebie games included.)


You'd still be essentially paying for the 'console' itself through the subscription so over a given amount of time it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper than buying a PS5. The price for the individual games then becomes an important deciding factor, as you allude to yourself, but without physical discs to create a second hand market I can't see it being cheaper than the PS5 (assuming you're happy to wait a bit for a given game to come down in price a bit rather than buying day one).

But you also need to give some thought to choice. All cross-platform games will come out on the PS5; I can't foresee all of them hitting Stadia given the porting work required for each one. Then there's exclusives, something Sony traditionally do incredibly well with and Google will never compete at.


This is a really good point. Subscriptions vs buying stuff full price on day one (not just games but also things like phones and all the rest).

Reminded me that I don't like subscriptions and made me think about how many I actually have. More than I thought. Spotify (more an addiction than a subscription, plus it works with all those personal spying devices we probably shouldn't have in our homes, but how good is it to speak to your bedroom clock to play a favourite song to your wife?). So that one's essential. Amazon Prime (pays for itself, but always has that reminder that I'm a hypocrite for despising the way they treat their workers, but still order from them). Retro Gamer (I need something to read on the bog). Mobile phone - 5 Euros a month and none of that two years nonsense. Come to think of it most of that sounds reasonable.

This post (like most of mine) might not be relevant to anything.
Grim... wrote:
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.

Yeah, those Muscovites do get a bit nippy lining up at the hot dog stand.

...

...

Giphy "badum-tish":
https://media3.giphy.com/media/fGL0yU2hxEqDFE6O4G/giphy-loop.mp4
Does seem strange that there's no Twitter/Facebook/discord/twitch etc though. I don't have a problem with including ICQ or any of the others.
DavPaz wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.

Xenophobes

No Davpaz, they're just people like you and me!
Grim... wrote:
DavPaz wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.

Xenophobes

No Davpaz, they're just people like you and me!

I stand corrected, you dirty southerner.
Mimi wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ICQ is huge in Russia, you racists.

Yeah, those Muscovites do get a bit nippy lining up at the hot dog stand.


Disappointed, chaps. This was good!
Too highbrow for this audience.
LewieP wrote:
https://twitter.com/olafurw/status/1197079572690472961

To be clear, this isn't Stadia platform per se. It's some community/forum that uses off-the-shelf software (you can see "Powered By Khoros" in the screenshot) that, presumably, is rather... behind the curve.
Trooper wrote:
Too highbrow for this audience.

I assumed it was a typo :)
I think what I found alarming was the fact it takes an unused 200mb connection to stream 4k, and some of the games are not 4k they're more like 1440p. It also lacks the quality of the XB1X @ actual 4k.

Firstly in the part of the UK I reside the fastest connection I could get is around 68mb and I'd pay dearly for that. 38 costs me around £44 a month. However with no cable there's nothing even close to 200mb any way.

Then the second issue. If someone even so much as farts whilst you're gaming by using the same connection it all goes a bit Pete Tong. So for 4k you need a 200mb connection doing absolutely nothing else but Stadia for it to work.

When you add up a year of 200mb internet over your typical Joe Schmo 38mb connection you could buy a 1x almost outright with the saving and lack of monthly sub fees.

So OK it's not really for 4k... Thing is 1080p consoles are very cheap now. So I just don't see the point really.

Maybe in 10 years things may change.
Some of the games are actually 1080p upscaled, not even 1440p.

And there are compression artifacts such as colour banding and macroblocking. Which are particularly bad on their only exclusive game (which taked place at night so it's very dark).
Yeah RDR2 is an upscaled 1440p at 30FPS on what look like XB1X graphics settings, which is to say parity with what is generally LOW-HIGH on PC, with one setting that's so low it doesn't even have a PC equivalent.

Destiny 2 manages 60FPS but by running at an upscaled 1080p (!) and the equivalent of PC MEDIUM settings.

And this is before you get into the regular hitches, lag spikes, frame drops, and general crappery.

Some Canadian blokes were reviewing it on 1gig fibre and described gameplay as like watching a 720p YouTube video.
Oh, golly gosh. Only 1080p. However will we manage.
Well yes it's not like they're putting 4K60FPS front and centre in the marketing, charging £60 for years old games, and wanting £10 per month on top for a 4K60FPS subscription, is it?

No, wait, the other one.

Attachment:
lying_shitheels.JPG
6 months. You'll be a subscriber in 6 months
Not a chance, there is literally nothing about it that appeals to me.
Giphy "time will tell":
https://media3.giphy.com/media/Ojr7n76LQQujqDjHbe/giphy-loop.mp4

edit: Giphy can kiss my arse.
The only thing left to do now is take bets on when Google turn it off.
i think it is 50/50

Google turning it off or you signing up.... :)
Hearthly wrote:
with what is generally LOW-HIGH on PC, with one setting that's so low it doesn't even have a PC equivalent.


Is that.... above or below medium? (the low end of high.... or the high end of low :S ). I haven't messed about with PC settings for a long time so I'm not taking the piss
If you watch the Digital Foundry analysis, the XB1X version of RDR2 runs at a really weird potpourri of settings from the PC version, most of them are somewhere between LOW and HIGH, with a couple of VERY HIGHS, but also one that renders below even the PC's lowest setting.

The Stadia version of RDR2 appears to be running at the same fidelity as the XB1X version, which is to say, way below what the supposed specs of Stadia suggest (and advertise!) they would run the game at.

And then on top of that you've got to add in video compression, lurches, frame hitches, extra lag, and all the rest of it.

i.e. You'd be a lot better off just playing RDR2 on an XB1X.
Hearthly wrote:
If you watch the Digital Foundry analysis,


Nope.

Seriously tho, thanks for answering, that makes more sense now. I'll take your summary over watching the video tho.
Google Stadia: a solution looking for a problem.
'Stadia has just been killed'

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