Google Stadia Overpromised On What It Could Do, Says Take-Two CEO

[SunBroDave]

Considering the insane amount of Switches and Animal Crossing that were sold in the last 3 months during Covid, I don't think the cost of a console is as large a barrier to entry as people thought. If the content is there, and people are made aware of the content, and there's nothing people would rather be doing, then people will throw down whatever money is needed to get the content.

 

[spman2099]

The simple truth is they had two avenues for success...

1. Absolutely nailing the technology. If they had delivered a product that looked like something running on a high-end PC, and had no noticeable lag, then I think they would have found a lot of success. They were essentially selling Stadia on that promise (or one near enough to it). However, it turned out that they hadn't cracked the code. This dream of lagless streaming gaming is still an utter fantasy.

2. The other route was to make it an impossibly good deal. If Stadia launched with a Netflix like service, and was affordable, they would have been a huge success. People wouldn't have been too hung up on the lag. Obviously they would have had to take a hit initially, but this strategy would have most certainly earned them a TON of positive attention.

Those were the only two ways for them to succeed. They didn't deliver either. Thus, Stadia is what it is.

 

[Gibordep]

Stadia didn't explode having a better hardware that current gen consoles, with the next gen consoles it will stay behind.

 

[Jonnax]

They said their servers were much more powerful than current gen consoles.

Why did the operate similar or worse?

This hasn't been answered by them.

As a consumer, my assumption is that they lied.

No way, I'm going to spend money on it.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

I've seen more people use the service to supplement their existing console or PC usage, not replacing their console or PC.

I think Google honesty expected people to ditch PC or console gaming altogether.

 

[fontguy]

Paying full price for individual games that can't be played offline and will vanish completely should the service (operated by a company with a reputation for killing things) be discontinued is just a bad proposition.

 

[panda-zebra]

Like Netflix and Gamepass, to get people locked in to your service you gotta over-deliver on value and service up front and await real paydays down the line when it becomes a normalised part of their lives.

Phil Harrison over-promised massively.

Their only realy positive going forwards is their streaming tech itself is the best there is. It's just pretty much everything else that lets it down...

At least on paper, Stadia & the next-gen systems have similar specs, but nothing is properly optimized for Stadia other than faster loading. The games you would expect to be 4K60 just aren't.

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Not even on paper unless all your're looking at is a GPU TF number with zero context. Current Stadia is 2 year old Vega-based. It's not going to live with the new consoles and currently struggles to out-perform mid-gen refresh hardware to any real degree.

 

[mattypacker]

People that don't want to buy consoles aren't paying $60 for games...

I want streaming to be attached to my normal library, like remote play on PS/Steam.

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This is the main issue. I don't know a single person who doesn't have a console that would be willing to pay the prices for full retail releases. The market just isn't there.

If you have good internet that costs quite a bit a month, the likelihood that you wouldn't be willing to pay £200-250 for a console is pretty low.

I have stadia, and it has been a relatively good experience, although it was convinced my internet wasn't good enough yesterday despite it never having an issue before (and even Google's own test saying I should have no issue), which meant I couldn't play the games I had. I just moved to my PS4 to play but I can't imagine how frustrated I would be if I had paid for a game and I couldn't play it because Google decided I couldn't.

Now Xcloud is amazing, mainly because I have a choice. I can play locally on my Xbox console, or if I'm away I can stream on my phone. A hybrid approach is the only way in my opinion

 

[ABIC]

Stadia's quality of service is not that high yet. The problem is it's not completely under their control because they need ISPs to play nice, unlike local hardware in a box.

If it had flawless service, that'd be one big factor out of the way. Then it becomes an issue of library size.

$10/month = $120/year = $840 over 7 years, the typical lifespan of a console generation

In the short run, in bursts, it has value proposition. Not in the long run. For serious console gamers, buying the box is a no-brainer at the moment.

I think they need to properly think through their audience, pricing and library. For all the brain power there is at Google, Stadia looks very poorly executed.

 

[thebishop]

The inherent latency and video quality issues of streaming are fairly well solved with Stadia. I've had a solid experience with it especially on Chromecast. The main place where Stadia under-delivers is on the hardware performance. Google promised 4k60 gaming, but their hardware isn't capable of delivering that with visual quality people expect. And 60fps is essential to mitigate streaming latency.

This can be solved with a server-side hardware upgrade, and I hope that is coming soon. Another problem is the lack of optimization for Google's Linux+AMD+Vulkan architecture. So even though their hardware is underpowered for 4k, many games are performing below the level you'd expect from the same hardware on Windows. This is largely a market share problem. Developers don't have an incentive to optimize their Stadia target anywhere near the level they do for PS4 and Xbox. Again a hardware upgrade can "brute force" this problem to some extent, but Google will be playing second-fiddle to other platforms as long as their market share is in the thousands.

 

[night814]

Not every market has fiber connections, good nodes and friendly providers.

I value latency and ownership.

I think we could get there. But not quite yet.

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All of this, plus if I'm gonna do streaming I'd rather it be an add-on like xCloud or remote play to something I already have. I'd rather it be an option as opposed to mandatory.

 

[abellwillring]

I posted some replies on an Android Police article back in January and I'll always go back to them.

• I don't see a realistic market of users that says video game systems are too expensive but video games themselves are not. How are they going to convince these people to pay the full price for a game? Long term this can only work as a subscription model -- it will be a colossal failure if they try and rely on people who don't have access to these games elsewhere for cheaper buying them.
  
• But who is the user who is willing to spend $20-60 on a game that isn't willing to buy a console? I don't think they actually exist. Certainly not en masse. If you're not a "gamer" in 2019, then you think of games as being free or $2-3 on your iPhone (or Android as it were). Apple realized the market for paid iPhone games had dried up so much that they made a subscription service for games and it hasn't set the world on fire by any means in terms of users and that only costs $5 a month. How is Google going to convince someone to spend $60 on a video game if they're so far outside the video game ecosystem? I don't think they will or can.

• > there are a lot of people who want to play 2-3 games only and might spend 100$ a year on games.

  Click to shrink...

  Are there really enough of these people to actually make something like this a success though? I'm not sure that there are. The issue is two fold.
  
  1.) My wife is not much of a gamer, but she'll be getting her own Switch (Lite) when Animal Crossing comes out in March. I can 100% see where there are certain games like that which would be appealing not having to buy a system specifically for them -- but most of these games are going to be exclusive to a specific system and won't be on this service. She's also played all the games previously in the series so she's a built-in user. In this use case, that's probably the one game she'd buy and it would sustain her for a few years. She's not a repeat customer which leads to #2.
  
  2.) For this service to make money and make sense, they're going to need lots of repeat customers. And they're going to need these to be customers who don't buy games in more traditional means because there'd be limited scenarios where buying the Stadia version over the console/PC version makes sense, frankly. On top of that, these potential buyers are used to digital goods costing less than physical goods because of their limitations and lack of re-sale value. So you've got to convince people to buy a few games a year at prices that are very high in general (in most cases higher than on other platforms and any game more than $2-3 seems like a small fortune to a non-gamer) and you've got to convince them to do it often. It looks like an uphill battle to me.
  
  
• This product cannot exist long term if most of the users buy just 1 game. There is no money for Google in that...they'd be losing hand over fist on operating costs especially since the actual profit on selling games is relatively small.
  
  For this to succeed, they need to convince people at large who do not game at all beyond fiddling around on their phones here and there to be willing to spend more than $2-3 on any game at all on a regular basis. It's a tough proposition and frankly one that doesn't seem realistic. It would be like asking people who only watch movies at home on Red Box to start paying $60 to watch them.
  
  
  

 

[Fadewise]

Maybe now they'll stop being dicks about GeForce Now

 

[Jade1962]

I've argued the same when it comes to streaming services for AAA games. I believe NPD Matt espoused the same idea as well. I tried Stadia during the trial while nice I couldn't see myself paying full price for games on there. Plus having to buy a controller to play on the TV is a no go if you are trying to entice console owners who primarily play on TV.

 

[Deleted member 33567]

i can only see it working with the Netflix model. having to buy each game is just not an attractive proposition.

 

[justiceiro]

So he's saying red dead rendemption at 4k 60fps didn't happened because of Google?

 

[EVIL]

The belief that streaming was going to be transformative was based on a view that there were loads of people who really had an interest in interactive entertainment, really wanted to pay for it, but just didn't want to have a console. I'm not sure that turned out to be the case."

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I still think there are plenty of people wanting to dip into interactive entertainment but dont want to buy hardware, its just that the way google set up their service was a huge mistake. You need to set it up in a way like netflix does, with a base subscription and a library that you can then play for free.
nobody want to pay for a service (I am aware there is a free option) streaming and then have to shell out full price for titles that they can already buy for their PS4 and xbox.

Besides that google simply fucked up with mixed messaging, a bad strategy, and a veeeery minimal effort put into pulling people in by serving customers games they can already play on other platforms, at the end of a console generation when most people already dipped into a PS4 and xbox.

They should have waited with this until this year and then drop in right between MS and Sony and offer next gen titles on a netflix style service. 20 to 30 bucks a month subscription but play next gen titles on any device you want. I am pretty sure it would have been a roaring success

fucking up in serving an audience doesn't mean the audience isn't there.

 

[Tora]

For Stadia, I was a big defender of it (or the concept) on here, til it went free and I tried Destiny on it. The lag made Destiny PVP unplayable. At that point I've reversed. I have little further interest in Stadia.

Click to shrink...

The opposite for me, although I still don't care for it.

Destiny ran butter smooth on my end using a K+M

 

[psionotic]

Anyone know why games that are $20 everywhere else ARE $60 on Stadia? Is this Google's doing, or the publishers, or..?

I see a lot of cross-platform sales by various publishers, are they just not extending those sales to Stadia, or what?

Because I might be willing to try it out on a game or two if I didn't have to severely overpay for said games. (And no way would I gamble on any new $60 game)

 

[Thera]

PC players think Stadia is for console players who doesn't want to buy a console.
Console players think Stadia is for PC players who doesn't want to buy a gaming PC.
Google think Stadia is for everyone and will replaced everything.

 

[JomanC137]

Imagine thinking there are millions of secret potential consumers out there who already pay for high speed internet each month but for some reason couldn't put down $299 for an Xbox...

Click to shrink...

This market misread has always been the issue with game streaming services

 

[Dunlop]

Anyone know why games that are $20 everywhere else ARE $60 on Stadia? Is this Google's doing, or the publishers, or..?

I see a lot of cross-platform sales by various publishers, are they just not extending those sales to Stadia, or what?

Because I might be willing to try it out on a game or two if I didn't have to severely overpay for said games. (And no way would I gamble on any new $60 game)

Click to shrink...

Games have sales like all of the other storefronts, I picked up AC:O for about $20. Division 2 for $10, Doom BL3, ect have all been on sale.

Biggest issue is buying indie games as they become Pro games very quickly. This month they gave 5 games, if you are old like me than Panzer Dragoon is a must play lol

 

[LCGeek]

I have good internet and Stadia is a lag fest, paying Destiny 2 on it wasn't a good experience, I'm living in a Nordic country. So hopefully streaming isn't the future or at the very least 5-10 years away.

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So what if you have good acess or bandwidth, it's a streaming service unless you have well tuned it and set it up for packet priority it would feel like crap.

My beef with stadia besides over promising performance or IQ is the utter shoddy approach they took to achieve good latency performance for people at the edge of the net. Still don't get why they thought they could avoid this problem in a streaming service. It's logistically unavoidable with this tech.

I made plenty of titles viables on my connection. Input lag wasn't my beef once I minimized it heavily it was a too soft image. We would need insane consistent bandwidth or a really compression tech to get me to care about straming outside of utility needs I have with it.

 

[Hailinel]

I've started seeing ads for Stadia appended to YouTube videos again recently, but they don't really say much, and the game they pushed hard in on of them was...PUBG.

A game from years ago already available on PC, console, and mobile.

 

[psionotic]

Games have sales like all of the other storefronts, I picked up AC:O for about $20. Division 2 for $10, Doom BL3, ect have all been on sale.

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Ah, good to know. Is the issue then that games just aren't reducing in sticker price over time like they do elsewhere?

 

[Dunlop]

Ah, good to know. Is the issue then that games just aren't reducing in sticker price over time like they do elsewhere?

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I guess they validate it as they have to develop on a new platform, which is why I still don't own Skryrim on the Switch as it is $80 in Canada...

 

[pswii60]

Google's strategy with Stadia is all wrong. Whereas MS has absolutely got it right. xCloud as a companion service to your Xbox console or PC. So you can play games on the go as you wish. Rather than a replacement for your console or PC that Google is aiming for with Stadia.

And yeah the type of person who wants to play higher end games will have a console or gaming PC already. It's not like Stadia is totally "free", you're still having to buy a controller and Chromecast if you want to play it on your TV, and by that point you might as well get a console considering the additional value.

 

[thepenguin55]

Who could've known people don't want to buy games exclusively to stream and be locked to having an internet connection when they could get them for cheaper on local hardware.

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This was always the problem. If they wanted to stick to the idea of this being a streaming only service they needed to also make it a subscription only service. I feel like Stadia has proved that the number of people willing to buy streams to individual games is low. Not non-existent by any stretch but low.

Even if the rollout of Stadia was exactly the same as it was with the only difference being that the games you bought through Stadia could also be installed locally on a PC maybe the initial reception would've been similar but I think people's willingness to eventually get on board and buy games through Stadia would be higher if Stadia was essentially a standard PC storefront with the added bonus of being able to stream the games you buy.

 

[Dunlop]

Google's strategy with Stadia is all wrong. Whereas MS has absolutely got it right. xCloud as a companion service to your Xbox console or PC. So you can play games on the go as you wish. Rather than a replacement for your console or PC that Google is aiming for with Stadia.

Click to shrink...

Forget Google for a second as it makes people see red. How would any new entrant compete in the same method as MS who has decades of hardware and software units sold? It would be crazy for anyone now to try and create a new console line.

 

[shoyz]

$60 a copy locked to a platform that will, in all likelihood be shut down by Google sooner than later meant the service was dead on arrival.

Geforce Now allowing you to stream games you own from standard platforms like Steam (including proper sale pricing) or Netflix-style catalog services like Playstation Now leave Stadia in no man's land. It's not like the vision of no-hardware play is even there, with needing a gaming controller and streaming device (like a Chromecast) in the first place.

 

[CommodoreKong]

You either need to have streaming just be an extra option on top of downloads or have a really good subscription model to go with it to make streaming exclusively happen.

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Yeah something like Xcloud or Steam's streaming service that lets you stream from your PC to a mobile device is an incredible added value. I've used a lot of Steam's streaming service recently to stream Monster Train to my tablet so I don't always have to play it at my desk.

 

[Kthulhu]

I agree. Stadia's tech is impressive, but I don't think it's at a point where a sizable chunk of the market will care.

The average consumer wants to be able to use wifi or a cell connection to play these games and unfortunately those just aren't good enough for cloud gaming. I also don't think the average person wants to pay $60 a pop for games they don't own and could disappear at any time. Onlive tried the same thing and was a failure.

This isn't even counting the bad Stadia ports, some games not even being able to stream in 4K, lack of feature parity between devices, and lack of cross play for some titles.

It's a shame too, because I really think Google had a lot of potential to make Stadia great, but something along the line led them to make a lot of bizarre and terrible decisions.

 

[LCGeek]

Yeah something like Xcloud or Steam's streaming service that lets you stream from your PC to a mobile device is an incredible added value. I've used a lot of Steam's streaming service recently to stream Monster Train to my tablet so I don't always have to play it at my desk.

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I've been using several of their streaming tech. Remote play is another feature me and some friends heavily use if we don't own titles with coop but want to grind.

Very nice lets me play titles I otherwise would be ignoring.

I agree. Stadia's tech is impressive, but I don't think it's at a point where a sizable chunk of the market will care.

The average consumer wants to be able to use wifi or a cell connection to play these games and unfortunately those just aren't good enough for cloud gaming. I also don't think the average person wants to pay $60 a pop for games they don't own and could disappear at any time. Onlive tried the same thing and was a failure.

Click to shrink...

I think your bigger point matters more, most of the market doesn't care for the effort it asks or results it offers price or not.

it works on wifi, but again the depends totally on the wifi, isp and topology/backbone/tuning it connects to the streaming service.

 

[Hanbei]

So I assume Red Dead Redemption 2 didn't perform very well on Google Stadia, did it?

 

[number8888]

The value proposition was simply terrible initially. You have to get a special version of the Chromecast, pay for a subscription, and pay for games in order to actually play them. On top of that most of the games were also available on other platforms, which the target demographic will likely already own at least one of.

They should have released the free tier at the beginning. There would have been a lot more adopters. When they finally released the free tier not too long ago nobody cared anymore. Even Google seemed to have given up.

 

[smash_robot]

Stadia had to be a success immediately; it wasn't so it will be an uphill battle for google. Everyone knows about their "fail fast" approach, so who is going to trust them to put the resources into this that are required? Nobody that's who.

 

[Kthulhu]

I think your bigger point matters more most of the market doesn't care for the effort it ask.

it works on wifi, but again the depends totally on the wifi, isp and topology it connects the streaming service

Click to shrink...

Most people have their modem/router combo their ISP gave them and have it shoved in a closet. When you ask people to do otherwise they often react with hostility. That basically eliminates a huge audience of people who could otherwise use Stadia just fine.

 

[Dunlop]

Geforce Now allowing you to stream games you own from standard platforms like Steam (including proper sale pricing)

Click to shrink...

GFN should have been the holy grail of streaming, but lost most of it's library since going live. It opened everyone's eye's to game ownership illusion. If you use it a a complementary service to your gamine PC ok, otherwise it is really not worth the risk of buying a game you might not be able to play on a moments notice (as I did for Skyrim and Doom 2016 and they were pulled days later)

They changed their model to opt in so it should be a little safer, but there is still nothing that prevents games from being pulled

 

[Thatguy]

I want Stadia except run by PlayStation and has the entire PSN catalog. Buy digital, run on local console or subscription cloud stream or both. I think there is a fair chance next gen it's a baked in option.

 

[Mirage]

I feel like for Stadia to really get a hold you would need stuff like crossplay Call of Duty and FIFA. Those are the games the majority of consoles users are playing and not even moving far beyond.

 

[Dunlop]

I want Stadia except run by PlayStation and has the entire PSN catalog. Buy digital, run on local console or subscription cloud stream or both. I think there is a fair chance next gen it's a baked in option.

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I think that will depend if xCloud has any impact on PS5 sales

 

[Kaako]

Not every market has fiber connections, good nodes and friendly providers.

I value latency and ownership.

I think we could get there. But not quite yet.

Click to shrink...

We should've been there some time ago. Corporations can't hold all this greed though.

 

[Deleted member 437]

Seinfeld Thatsashame.gif

 

[LCGeek]

Most people have their modem/router combo their ISP gave them and have it shoved in a closet. When you ask people to do otherwise they often react with hostility. That basically eliminates a huge audience of people who could otherwise use Stadia just fine.

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I'm not asking people to move their shit out of closet merely enable features on that device to make a streaming service better or to update the device so that it can do the function to begin with.

I'm aware of these hostilites have been since I was young adult and did contract work for time warner. Fine is what leads to disappointing destiny 2 experiences vs mine or others.

Dealing with the edge is doable but I don't think the best approach is wild west approach where you expect common people with infinietly less tech experience to do the job ISP Google or venders of said such devices could be doing better off the bat. Some are adjusting but a lot just love selling people a line of bullshit with no real resolution to the underlying matter.

You can bake all tuning I mention for low latency in to a router and have them setup a certain way they just aren't. I use to think it was incompetence till I realized a lot of people I'm learning from are involved at these companies. Mangement and priorities are gonna make a tech that doesn't need suck, suck.

 

[Thatguy]

I think that will depend if xCloud has any impact on PS5 sales

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I'll be surprised if Sony isn't doing just this. It's just next gen PS Now really. In a nutshell:

Buy a digital game
Play it on your ps5 in 4k/60
Play it on your PS Now sub 1080p/30

It just makes sense. Some people would like to play PS5 games in multiple rooms. Some don't want the box at all due to up front cost or just prefer streaming. I think a $150 streaming box makes tons of sense. You get the little streaming box, a Dual Sense, and a 1 month PS Now sub that also acts as a streaming account for digital purchases. TONS of people with the PS5 box would buy this instead of just a second controller too.

Licensing was probably an issue with PS4 since PS Now came in mid-gen but next gen it could be baked in to every contract. Basically if you sell your game digitally on PSN it gives the consumer the right to run it on the console or over PS Now. It's not a big difference.

 

[thebishop]

I still think Google made the right decisions for a long term play. People are upset about the idea of "buying" a stream. But the same concerns were (are still) raised with digital, and ultimately trust over time + convenience wins out. The idea of Stadia (in theory) instantly playing your library of games 20 years from now is pretty attractive compared to every other platform including PC.

There is a concern that Stadia is a new platform rather than piggybacking on an existing developer target. This is a clear hurdle, but the industry favoring big middleware like Unreal Engine, and cross platform technologies like Vulkan mitigates that a lot. Also the prevalence of Linux in all kinds of spaces means it's far from alien to most developers. Most software engineers prefer linux/unix to Windows already. Over the long term, it's more important that the first party (Google) can actually control their platform rather than be limited by the technical and licensing terms of a core vendor (Microsoft).

Right now Stadia is a pretty bad platform. The library has some bangers, but nothing setting it apart. The system-wide innovations possible with streaming are mostly not implemented. One major use case I want to see is simply texting a url to a friend and instantly playing multiplayer with them. This isn't available yet, and there are few games where I'd do it anyway.

Another major problem is the free to play model. Widely played games like Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite are not on the platform. If they were on the platform, they'd be locked behind the Pro plan (per PUBG). Google has to figure out a model where free to play games can be actually free to the user, or they're going to miss a huge opportunity. I know plenty of people who would stream Warzone just to never bother with 10+GB updates and shader installs.

The other thing of course is exclusives. Stadia has got to roll out a world class first party. It's a big job, but it's the price of admission.

 

[Yinyangfooey]

Stadia had some pretty impressive features when they announced it in March 2019. Being able to jump from your browser to your smartphone was pretty cool, but IIRC, you still can't do that, right?

How are you going to boast about features, and then not have them at launch? Google could have avoided a big majority of the criticism if they had marketed Stadia as a beta rather than a full-priced finished product at the very end of a console generation. Then they could have ironed out all the features and do a full launch to compete with PS5 and XSX.

Hell, I remember when Google did that bandwidth test with a free copy of Assassin's Creed (Odyssey I believe?) back then, and the reception from games press was MUCH better than it is now.

 

[night814]

exactly. the tech Is pretty great, its the service. the marketing is confusing and obtuse, the lineup is limited, the launch barely supported any devices, and the ongoing service has been lackluster.

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Out of all the devices I have like my phone and various brands of tablets the only things that I could even play games on for the two month trial was my laptop which is already used for gaming

 

[Dunlop]

Stadia had some pretty impressive features when they announced it in March 2019. Being able to jump from your browser to your smartphone was pretty cool, but IIRC, you still can't do that, right?

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You totally can which is what sold me on streaming. I can play Stadia on my laptop (in Chrome or Edge), Chromebook, Chromecast, FireTV 4k (not officially supported) and Galaxy S9. They are slow to roll out the phones that are supported but you can pretty much use any Android phone that has Chrome and run the webpage in desktop mode.

Google's shitty communication is it's worst enemy as well as the lack luster library which is ever so slowly filling out, but their tech destroys GFN and xCloud (of which I use both) in terms of ease to use, device portability and performance. Even if you were a founder and want to talk about value, currently it is 23 "free" games if you kept your pro sub up (I think this month will be only the second month charged)

 

[Neilg]

Streaming without a Netflix-style subscription is off-putting for me. When streaming comes to Game Pass, that's when I'm more likely to use it.

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there's a public beta of MS's game pass streaming. I've had it for what must be 6 months now. Works with ps4 controllers now too.

Xbox Game Streaming (Preview) | Xbox

Get a first look at Xbox Game Streaming. Stream your favorite Xbox games from the cloud or console straight to your Android phone or tablet.

www.xbox.com

I get more latency than stadia unfortunately. ended up buying wreckfest on pc because of it.
They're continually adding more people to the beta to stress test their servers, you'll get in if you apply. My guess is the official launch will be alongside the new consoles, pitched as a value add for people in the xbox ecosystem.
I have a feeling sony will push psNOW a lot more next gen too.