I'm pretty sure you won't be able to play uplay in 4K without a sub
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Google Stadia Pro (4K/60, 5.1 surround) $9.99 a month. Stadia Base (1080/60) requires no subscription.
- Thread starter Cpt-GargameL
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Nothing Google provides comes even close to the cost of rendering games on the cloud.
Not even just google; game streaming is the single most expensive consumer oriented web product ever. Google charges about $1.25 an hour on GCP for an 8TF GPU w/ 8GB GDDR Ram + CPU + Storage for instance if you want to use a GPU on GCP right now for a VM. Granted it doesn't cost them that much an hour, but it gives you a rough idea of how expensive this outing is for Google/MS.
Google can probably stream 4k video on YouTube to thousands of people at once for the cost of 1 person playing a game on Stadia. And YouTube will show you advertising constantly if you don't pay them $9.99 a month.
So people expecting to spend endless hours for free on Stadia base because "google thrives on free products" to me are naive. The "data" isn't worth that much, so unless they are going to be constantly showing you advertising on Stadia base, don't expect too much outside of playing a game you paid $60 for.
Why would Google get revenue on UPlay+ subscriptions? Definitely not all of them.. they might have the option to buy them through the Stadia store, and thus get a cut.. but the main way to buy a UPlay+ sub is from Ubi themselves.
The fact you actually think you might get 4k w/o paying 9.99 to google is mindblowing to me.
Well they say stadia base is free so it's free I guess, that's whats been so impressive about this announcement that they can offer this for free
Yes it's impressive that it's free at all; which is why I wouldn't expect many ways to use Stadia Base w/o directly paying Google money.
You guys expecting F2P and bring-your-own UPlay+ subs might be right, but the fact you can't even fathom that you might be wrong is weird to me.
They dodged questions about F2P games on Stadia base.. only saying vaguely "no free games."
You think they didn't see the dozen or so people in that AMA that asked them again and again about F2P after they dodged that question?
To me considering the dodge plus the vague "no free games" I take that as Google isn't 100% sure WTF to do with Stadia Base when it comes to people playing games that they didn't pay directly for from Google. It's not confirmation that you WONT be able to play F2P, or "bring your own license UPlay+" games, but it suggests that you might not.
You pay $30 for 3 months of Stadia, play Destiny 2 for those 3 months.. then cancel your sub.. you lose access to Destiny 2 via Stadia base. So why would you get 100 Ubisoft games on Stadia Base if you pay Ubisoft $15 a month and pay Google $0?
I guess all we can do is wait & see. It's totally possible that Uplay+ will only work with Stadia Pro, but they haven't said that yet. But since Uplay+ won't be available for Stadia at launch, I'm assuming it's launching alongside Stadia Base. Whether or not you can get it with Stadia Base, again, is up in the air.
Gonna put this in it's own post, here's my logic:
You pay $30 for 3 months of Stadia, play Destiny 2 for those 3 months.. then cancel your sub.. you lose access to Destiny 2 via Stadia base. So why would you get 100 Ubisoft games on Stadia Base if you pay Ubisoft $15 a month and pay Google $0?
You pay $30 for 3 months of Stadia, play Destiny 2 for those 3 months.. then cancel your sub.. you lose access to Destiny 2 via Stadia base. So why would you get 100 Ubisoft games on Stadia Base if you pay Ubisoft $15 a month and pay Google $0?
I fully agree. Stadio Pro just got fucking real for me. I might just pay for a subscription for the sale of it like I do for PS+ and passively allow my collection to build up. I live in Los Angeles where there is Google Fiber is everywhere and Verizon true 5G is launching this fall. It makes Stadia a much more viable proposition after these announcements. There Marketing people have got to get their shit together. Stuff like this should have been the freaking lead.
If you cancel your sub, you should only lose access to the expansion packs. Destiny 2: New Light should still be free to play. But again, that's how it should work. Whether or not that will actually happen remains to be seen.
We have no clue if F2P Destiny will be on Stadia at all.
Either way, not my point. You pay 3 Months for "Video Game Z That Came With Stadia Pro" and then cancel your sub, you lose access to that game on Stadia base.. because you are no longer making Google revenue. So why would you get UPlay+ w/ no revenue to Google on Stadia base?
If UPlay+ is available on Stadia base that's a HUGE WIN for Ubisoft, not Google. Don't get me wrong, I want it bad.. in fact I would probably sign up for UPlay+ in a heartbeat if it was on Stadia Base because it means I could check games out quickly without installing them or potentially play them when I'm traveling for work w/o bringing my gaming laptop, etc. As it stands, I'm still debating UPlay+. So like I said, big win for Ubisoft if Google gives them endless free Stadia Base servers for their users.
I see it like a gateway drug. Google knows that people are extremely skeptical of Stadia. So when Stadia Base launches, having Uplay+ be part of that would make it easier to accept. $15 for hundreds of games you can play on any screen? That has to make someone at least curious to give it a shot for a month. If they love it, then they'll start buying games for it.
I agree with you, having subscriptions & free to play games on Stadia Base is definitely not a money maker, but Google is normally about getting as many people as possible.
Because Google gets 30% of that $15. Google knows when users are playing UPlay games on their service, they can easily go to Ubisoft and say "We had 20,000 users playing on UPlay this month, give us 30% of 20,000 subscription fees".
So you think they'll restrict it to people who buy Uplay+ through the Google Stadia store?
You think Ubisoft will fork over $5 if someone happens to stream on Stadia after buying UPlay+ form them?
You can't actually make that statement of fact either way. Granted I also can't claim they are getting $0, but I see no reason Google would get a dime if I buy Uplay+ straight from Ubisoft.
Read my edit:
"Google knows when users are playing UPlay games on their service, they can easily go to Ubisoft and say "We had 20,000 users playing on UPlay+ this month, give us 30% of 20,000 subscription fees". "
I do indeed think that Ubisoft will follow through on whatever agreement they signed with Google for UPlay+ to be available on the service. Google wouldn't allow that for free, it costs Google a lot of money for these servers and support.
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Yeah I was just about to say something along these lines. I'm sure Google gets a cut out of uPlay+
With Destiny 2 you are getting $70 worth of content (new expansion plus season DLC pass). Then each month they are giving another free game or so, and you get discounts on the store for buying games.
So yeah, not Netflix-like at all, unless you subscribe to UPlay+ for 100 Ubisoft games. More like PSN+ or XBLA.
It's a matter of how bullish vs. cautious Google will be. I think either way they will be watching the usage patterns and making changes over time; and they need to be careful about offering too much with Stadia Base and then having to "pull back" because they are losing money. But I could see things like advertising creeping into Stadia Base over time, or some other restrictions if you aren't directly giving Google cash. Will all depend on how the average "Stadia Base" user spends their time on Stadia.
It's the most interesting aspect of these streaming products to me; the fact a user spending their time on the service represents a significant cost. Far more significant than someone sitting on YouTube all day w/ adblock or the difference between 2 Netflix customers 1 who spends 10 hours a day watching and one who spends 10 hours a month watching. Nothing else in gaming really compares; an "F2P game leach" is barely costing epic anything because you could run Fortnite servers for thousands of players for the same "cost" as one person streaming a game. An "F2P leach" on Stadia, if they allow F2P, or ways of playing games on Stadia w/o them getting revenue, is significant.
But still, might be worth it to them...we'll see. I think it's interesting a timesink/grinding game like Destiny 2 is their first "free game" lol.. they might be surprised how many people spend dozens of hours a week playing Destiny 2 never forking over another dime than the $9.99 a month.
Some of you are thinking too short term... Google can look at this problem like "what will it cost to operate in 3-5 years... or 10 years". Not "what does it cost to operate today". Compute costs (Moore's law) and bandwidth (Edholm's law) will make it viable and profitable in due time even if it weren't today.
Ehhh.. compute costs going down relates to buying new hardware. That will only make it cheaper for Google to expand into new regions, or expand the scope of a datacenter to support new users over time w/ the same GPUs. But it's all huge upfront investments, and the hardware has to be replaced eventually because expectations go up. When 8K is expected Google will either have to increase the number of GPUs or replace them with new ones.. and then suddenly they are using significantly more bandwidth.
It being cheaper over time only works if you believe the consumer expectation will stay the same. Google will have to render prettier and prettier games over time so that doesn't really work that way.
You can transfer your character back and forth and Bungie is working on crossplay.
But Stadia is not "PC versions of games." It's essentially like it's own console dev wise. Supporting cross-play/cross-save is up to the developer.
Except if the Non PS+ took away most of the fidelity of the game, and also 5.1(which is key these days for immersion).
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At launch, yeah. They'll be giving away 1 game a month (give or take) ala PS+ you'll have access to these free games as long as you're a Stadia Pro subscriber.
Death Stranding coming to Stadia confirmed.
The game isn't cross-play on any platform. And as was said, Stadia is really a game console, not a PC. You aren't streaming PC games, you are streaming games running on custom next-gen console hardware, the games have to be ported to it just as if they were being ported to PS4 or Xbox One. Developers have real hardware development kits they are using to develop Stadia games.
Death stranding is published by Sony, so if it was anything it would probably be a new game exclusive to stadia by kojima
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Imagine what Kojima could do if google let him make an exclusive game from the ground up with multiple stadia instances instead of just 1
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Endless possibilities. If Google gets Kojima to work on a crazy exclusive it would definitely be a big draw to Stadia. Though Jade visiting him definitely has me curious.
I didn't think so before this image. And I agree it's likely not the case.
But as for Google's revenue on subs, i'd be really surprised if there aren't back-end/publisher costs to Stadia that we don't see as end-users, and won't be public for a long time. It's comparable to any cloud service (Azure, AWS, etc) in that sense.
Don't see why Stadia cannot arrange to get a cut out of the Uplay+ subscription when people access it through Stadia. I could image someone paying $15 a month for Uplay+ with Stadia Base for free or paying $10 for Stadia Pro and $15 for Uplay.
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If free games are rotated, then the only way to get full Destiny Stadia free is through Founders, right? They aren't currently doing monthly Pro subs at launch, are they?
I was close to getting the Founders but want Shadowkeep at launch, not two months after.
I was close to getting the Founders but want Shadowkeep at launch, not two months after.
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Seems like right now, at launch, the only way to get Destiny 2 and all its DLC FREE is via the founders edition, they'll continue to give different FREE games in a monthly basis. Pro subs will be available at launch as it's the only way to play Stadia at launch. Stadia Base will be available 2020. Not sure if that answers your questions.
Anyone would be crazy to think that Google aren't taking some sort of cut somewhere along the way. They're not building this service out of the kindness of their hearts.
But it seems with the wording in the OP that Pro sub is only available in November through the Founders edition. Am I reading that right? There doesn't seem to be a launch date for non-Founders Pro subs, correct?
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That's correct, the only way to play Stadia at launch is via the founders edition through a pro sub and only a pro sub is available at launch. Base will come 2020, presumably early 2020.
I don't understand this argument. Valve has made no assurances, EGS has made no assurances.
I get that Google has killed some products that people have liked, but this argument is silly. I own several movies on Google Play that are no longer commercially available, yet I can still watch them due to an agreement Google made with the IP holder.
The better question might be, will the base version will be ready within 3 months after release? If not, Stadia owners will have to resub and continue to pay for a pro sub or they'll lose access to their purchased games until the base version finally launches.
I have been considering preordering Stadia but only if Gylt is available at or near launch (within 1 to 2 months). I've been a bit confused if it is a launch title or a launch window title since Baldur's Gate 3 is also listed.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint shows the differentiation for Stadia
This shows the potential of Stadia, to me this is quite a cool feature to have in co-op games that won't impact performance or take up half the screen.
This shows the potential of Stadia, to me this is quite a cool feature to have in co-op games that won't impact performance or take up half the screen.
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