Sony and MS reportedly lost the fear of Stadia after seeing the disastrous launch of the console

[thecaseace]

I think the thing to be terrified about is Google's financial power. A half decent proposition could have a lot of money thrown at it to make our work.

This launch is so strategically bad however it'll take some time and more money for Google to recover the product.

 

[Imitation Of Life]

While true, I doubt that a lot of average consumers are going to shell out $500 w/tax on a PS5 or on a Xbox 4. That's like their whole paycheck. Maybe with hardcore gamers, but average consumers make up the majority of console sales by a wide margin.

All that Nintendo has to do, is just lower the price of the original Switch by $50 near November next year & people can get 2 Switches for the price of a PS5 or a Xbox 4.

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What difference does price make if you can't play the games you want to play? Price conscious gamers can just play most of those games on the current gen consoles until the price of next gen drops.

 

[sirap]

Pretty sure they lost that fear the second special agent Phil got in.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

OP, you should link to the actual article by Jason.

 

[H-I-M]

Seeing how Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Sony) want to go full streaming, is the stadia flopping that good of a thing?

 

[DrDeckard]

I trust Jason but at the same time I find it really hard to believe that anyone over at Sony/Microsoft had any genuine amount of fear.

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I totally agree, there is no way anyone higher up in a business would share externally that they were "terrified" of the competition.

Sorry, I should say I find it hard to believe someone would say that.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

i SERIOUSLY doubt sony and MS were at all scared of competition from stadia. from the very first reveal conference, it was super clear that google has no idea what they're doing when it comes to gaming. of course every subsequent announcement and piece of news further confirmed that but at no point did it look like a serious threat.

 

[Khanimus]

Streaming will happen and take off.

But it sure as fuck isn't happening today.

 

[Kaji AF16]

It sounds reasonable. Google has about the same resources as Microsoft, a consumer goodwill that rivals Sony's, and in many fields it holds the unregulated monopoly of late XIXth century Standard Oil.
The launch of Stadia will be featured on history books for the wrong reasons, and they can't exactly throw their supposedly "infinite warchest" to turn this around, but Google should still be identified as a potential threat by every platform holder.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

They were definitely taking notice but using the word terrified is just sensationalist. Jesus.

 

[Sidewinder]

So did I, at least for the foreseeable future.

They could turn this ship around in the next couple of years if they manage to deliver what they promised and buy EA for example.

 

[King Kingo]

I guess Sony and Microsoft were scared of Google being the first entrant into cloud gaming consoles and possibly ruining their ventures, but I highly doubt they were actually scared of Google as a competitor.

 

[Ausroachman]

I doubt they were scared once they realized Phil Harrison was running it.

 

[IIFloodyII]

It's about as concrete an example you'll find pointing to game streaming being nothing more than a support platform in it's current state, not the main one, which is what they both seemed to expect, but can see it being a big relief. Now they wait for Amazon's move I guess, Google just gave them a great what not to do and they aren't rushing it, so will probably be a bigger threat.

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

Stadia will either be killed off this time next year or they will change there business model to offer cloud services to others (EA, Activision, Nintendo, Ubisoft etc) and also offer advert integrated gameplay on YouTube (game ad plays, and you can try it out)

I don't know if this business model will make bank though.

 

[Deleted member 10795]

They were definitely taking notice but using the word terrified is just sensationalist. Jesus.

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Yep, this.

"Terrified" is silly, but Google are a huge company with enormous financial and infrastructure clout. It's simply good business and due diligence for both Sony and Microsoft to take them seriously until such time as they're obviously not a factor (which you could say is already the case now)

 

[GymWolf86]

Lol yeah i'm sure sony and M were trembling in fear before the launch...

 

[Alienous]

Yeah, that makes sense. If Google actually launched with games demonstrating that 10.7 teraflops of processing power it could hurt the perception of $500 consoles doing the same.

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

I doubt they were scared once they realized Phil Harrison was running it.

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Most gaming era members could of organised a better stadia launch.

If I was in charge, a few years prior to stadias launch the first thing I would of done is acquired these devs

The Chinese Room
Playdead
Bluehole
Housemarque
IO Interactive
People Can Fly
Iron galaxy
Ready at Dawn

I would have them working on exclusive content straight away and secure Exclusives deals, as well.
In the reveal conference I would show a small demos of io interactive new stealth game based in Japan, built from the ground up stadia hardware, it would have the most detailed Japanese towns ever scene, even putting cyberpunk npc count and detail to shame.
People can fly will show a teaser of there game which would be a first person action adventure game, set on Mars, you are a worker on a Mars base, due to your work you have an iron man like suit (not as advanced but still very tough), you survive a disaster caused by some unknown entity, you must survive and find out what happened, the game will feature many advanced UE4 svoggi lighting and UE4 new destruction tech.



I would also show a gameplay trailer for playdeads new game.

Instead of launching in Nov 2019, I would of launched as a beta in August 2019 with a full launch in spring/summer 2020.

 

[spman2099]

Before The Release

Ominous Narrator: "There is a poisonous spider somewhere in this room."

Sony: "Oh no!"

After The Release

*crunch*

Sony: "What did I just step on?"

 

[TheUnseenTheUnheard]

Both of these companies have seen - and done - massive recoveries from poor launches....

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It's funny that Phil Harrison was around for those poor launches. That's hilarious.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

You'd think with Google money, Stadia would've been able to launch with some killer exclusives. I'm guessing that's what Sony and MS were most afraid of?

 

[Ada]

I trust Jason but at the same time I find it really hard to believe that anyone over at Sony/Microsoft had any genuine amount of fear.

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You must have missed the Balmer saga and Android. Ignoring Google hasn't ended well for some companies.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

If I was in charge, a few years prior to stadias launch the first thing I would of done is acquired these devs

The Chinese Room
Playdead
Bluehole
Housemarque
IO Interactive
People Can Fly
Iron galaxy
Ready at Dawn

Click to shrink...

you stay away from playdead!

 

[gofreak]

I trust Jason but at the same time I find it really hard to believe that anyone over at Sony/Microsoft had any genuine amount of fear.

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I find it really easy to believe. Look at Sony's response:

Sony Corp, and its CEO, in multiple earnings calls since, put PSNow front and center.
At the Sony IR day, a significant chunk of time was spent discussing PSNow and game streaming.
Sony Corp and MS sign a MoU to explore technology partnership on streaming among other things. By the sounds of things, on Sony's side this may have been driven by Sony Corp - showing how important the company overall views this, and not just SIE.

Sony was, at the very least, very concerned about what the perception of Stadia could do to its shareprice, at least in how much PSNow and streaming suddenly were catapulted to the top of their investor relations agenda.

I think they probably still are concerned, not so much about Stadia specifically perhaps, but about the inflection point of streaming in general, and how to handle it.

 

[degauss]

Has it been disastrous? I mean I know the usual boring status-quo gamers are scoffing at it, and it wasn't a home run like Switch or something, but people seem pretty happy with it. I could see it building into a real force.

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

you stay away from playdead!

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Hey if Google want to make dent these are the things that need to be done.
And don't worry u can play playdeads new games on stadia.

But it's only my stadia boss fantasy. It's not real.

 

[Box]

Had Google called this launch a beta. There would be threads about how cautiously optimistic we all are about the service. Roadbumps at launch notwithstanding. Google could have responded to the concerns about quality and resolution with an 'it'll improve as we approach release' response (would have been enough for me to shut up for a couple of months) same for input latency and game choice. Always impressed when these massive companies make such stupid errors.

 

[Protome]

Had Google called this launch a beta. There would be threads about how cautiously optimistic we all are about the service. Roadbumps at launch notwithstanding. Google could have responded to the concerns about quality and resolution with an 'it'll improve as we approach release' response (would have been enough for me to shut up for a couple of months) same for input latency and game choice. Always impressed when these massive companies make such stupid errors.

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I feel like that and/or if they had actually delivered any part of their promise.
If their subscription service actually delivered 4k60fps like advertised for example, we'd be handwaving the other issues as teething issues while remarking that the core system was promising.

As is they just failed across the board and maybe some day they'll fix it but it's hard to undo this kind of PR damage.

 

[Box]

I feel like that and/or if they had actually delivered any part of their promise.
If their subscription service actually delivered 4k60fps like advertised for example, we'd be handwaving the other issues as teething issues while remarking that the core system was promising.

As is they just failed across the board and maybe some day they'll fix it but it's hard to undo this kind of PR damage.

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Absolutely Destiny 2 should have been 4k 60. No excuses given the requirements. Red Dead was a mistake especially so early after release and the intro performance and wow the compression soup in that snow leave a really bad first impression.

An an aside, and I already know the answer I'm sure, could someone buy RDR2 on Stadia and then when they upgrade their PC, use the same copy to play on PC?

 

[Protome]

An an aside, and I already know the answer I'm sure, could someone buy RDR2 on Stadia and then when they upgrade their PC, use the same copy to play on PC?

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No, it's the reason people (google themselves to a degree) keep comparing Stadia to a console. Games need to be ported to and from it, they're not just straight up PC versions of the games.

Even if they were though I doubt Google would allow that, it'd be far too good a business decision.

 

[pswii60]

Stadia's disastrous launch was just a bluff though. Well played Google.

 

[OG_Thrills]

I trust Jason but at the same time I find it really hard to believe that anyone over at Sony/Microsoft had any genuine amount of fear.

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I find this difficult to believe also. Unless of course, Jason's definition of "fear" is differs from the rest of us.

 

[Surface of Me]

They thought it was a shark, ended up being a dolphin.

 

[Box]

No, it's the reason people (google themselves to a degree) keep comparing Stadia to a console. Games need to be ported to and from it, they're not just straight up PC versions of the games.

Even if they were though I doubt Google would allow that, it'd be far too good a business decision.

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Great selling point, and the fact that it's so closed off just shines a stronger light on this awful launch. Le sigh lol

 

[Xiofire]

I think the only way that Google can claw this back is if they offer some form of local hardware to run the games as well as stream from the data centre, much like how Microsoft are approaching the idea with xCloud.

But that's to insinuate that Google actually cared about offering something to gaming as a market to begin with. This all felt like a quick monetary return on some powerful servers they bought for other big data/video compression endeavours to me.

 

[jschreier]

I trust Jason but at the same time I find it really hard to believe that anyone over at Sony/Microsoft had any genuine amount of fear.

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Well then you'd be wrong!

Of course, I'm not talking about "fear" as in "Uh oh, I hope Phil Harrison isn't hiding under my bed tonight." I'm talking about "fear" as in "oh shit our investors are going to flip out if one of the biggest companies in the world enters the gaming space with this revolutionary new technology and we don't react accordingly."

The context here is that around GDC 2018, rumors were circulating that Google had huge plans to take on Microsoft and Sony, and that the core of those plans was to reach billions of people rather than millions. Back then nobody could have known what a mess Stadia would turn out to be, but I can assure you that gaming executives were extremely worried and devising their own plans with Google in mind. Nothing spooks industry investors like a brand new competitor with an ambitious mandate and literally infinite funds.

 

[NewDust]

Well, the real impact would be seen when the free tier of Stadia becomes available. Not that they need to worry, but I imagine Stadia will grow overtime and market share will become substantial.

 

[riverfr0zen]

The "meat" of the OP's article (translated):

Jason Schreier says he was told by workers at several studios that PlayStation and Xbox employees often talked about Google's plans and what their response to streaming and Stadia would be.

Now, after the troubled launch of Google's service, Sony and Microsoft seem to feel that they have overstated the threat Stadia posed and are ready to vie for your attention and money.

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What is this laughable bullshit obviously manufactured specifically for consumption by anti-streaming/anti-Stadia gamers. Companies don't think like this. They're not a "person" who gets afraid of something, and then at first sign of relief just gets all calm and not worried anymore.

And while Google badly communicated their "early access" as a "launch", and many gamers look at it that way, there is no way that competitors are so blind that they see it the same way. They know this is Google making a first incursion into gaming and they know that Google will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service moving forward. So it's not like they're going to look at this one one "launch" (which they know is a wide beta test in reality) and sit down and pat themselves on the back saying "Yeah, nothing to worry about".

 

[Henrar]

It's not a console.

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Of course it's not a console, but it competes with them. And it will compete (or already does) with Sony's and Microsoft's streaming platforms.

 

[Kill3r7]

The biggest threat Google and/or Amazon pose to the big three are their giant coffers. The ability to invest billions into poaching talent and buying up studios I imagine is a real concern for execs at all these companies as it raises costs.

 

[Dunlop]

The "meat" of the OP's article (translated):



What is this laughable bullshit obviously manufactured specifically for consumption by anti-streaming/anti-Stadia gamers. Companies don't think like this. They're not a "person" who gets afraid of something, and then at first sign of relief just gets all calm and not worried anymore.

And while Google badly communicated their "early access" as a "launch", and many gamers look at it that way, there is no way that competitors are so blind that they see it the same way. They know this is Google making a first incursion into gaming and they know that Google will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service moving forward. So it's not like they're going to look at this one one "launch" (which they know is a wide beta test in reality) and sit down and pat themselves on the back saying "Yeah, nothing to worry about".

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Pretty much, surprising click bait article.

 

[Apathy]

I get the sense that internally Stadia was pitched as a low-risk thing because they already had the cloud infrastructure, and that everything else would just fall into place with little effort. It seemed like a strong product until it was launched and the actual extents of the product became publically visible.

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The fact that at the reveal they then mentioned that they had just started their games studios and they would have no self made exclusives said a lot to everyone about how Google was handling this thing.

 

[jschreier]

The "meat" of the OP's article (translated):



What is this laughable bullshit obviously manufactured specifically for consumption by anti-streaming/anti-Stadia gamers. Companies don't think like this. They're not a "person" who gets afraid of something, and then at first sign of relief just gets all calm and not worried anymore.

And while Google badly communicated their "early access" as a "launch", and many gamers look at it that way, there is no way that competitors are so blind that they see it the same way. They know this is Google making a first incursion into gaming and they know that Google will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service moving forward. So it's not like they're going to look at this one one "launch" (which they know is a wide beta test in reality) and sit down and pat themselves on the back saying "Yeah, nothing to worry about".

Click to shrink...

This is true, and also a problem with the journalism aggregation machine, as I haven't said anywhere that Sony and Microsoft no longer see Google as a threat or anything even close to what this thread title says.

 

[Deleted member 61469]

The "meat" of the OP's article (translated):



What is this laughable bullshit obviously manufactured specifically for consumption by anti-streaming/anti-Stadia gamers. Companies don't think like this. They're not a "person" who gets afraid of something, and then at first sign of relief just gets all calm and not worried anymore.

And while Google badly communicated their "early access" as a "launch", and many gamers look at it that way, there is no way that competitors are so blind that they see it the same way. They know this is Google making a first incursion into gaming and they know that Google will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service moving forward. So it's not like they're going to look at this one one launch and sit down and pat themselves on the back saying "Yeah, nothing to worry about".

Click to shrink...

Are you under the impression that MS and Sony will twiddle their thumbs while google "will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service"?

They were obviously afraid that Stadia would make a splash and pull a huge amount of customers away from their own service while they are preparing for next gen. Which certainly did not happen.

Now Google has blown their load and it turned out to be a dud. Now it's MS/Sonys time to go on the offensive. Stadia is going to get buried next fall.

 

[Akela]

Microsoft? Terrified? lol

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They were complacent when Google entered the smartphone market and it cost them dearly.

They went from being the primary smartphone OS developer alongside Blackberry in the pre-iPhone days to discontinuing Windows Mobile and dropping out of the race entirely. Now the only phone they're developing at the moment (Surface Duo) runs Google's OS.

Google can be extremely aggressive when they put their full resources towards a project, it's just that they only sometimes do so.

 

[Dunlop]

Are you under the impression that MS and Sony will twiddle their thumbs while google "will continue operating on an iterative approach with the service"?

They were obviously afraid that Stadia would make a splash and pull a huge amount of customers away from their own service while they are preparing for next gen. Which certainly did not happen.

Now Google has blown their load and it turned out to be a dud. Now it's MS/Sonys time to go on the offensive. Stadia is going to get buried next fall.

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If they thought Stadia would affect their customer base now then they should fire their analysts. The impact if any has always been about the next gen.

 

[riverfr0zen]

This is true, and also a problem with the journalism aggregation machine, as I haven't said anywhere that Sony and Microsoft no longer see Google as a threat or anything even close to what this thread title says.

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Thank you for providing the additional context/perspective in your other post above. I wasn't accusing you of "bullshit", of course, just the way the thread and the quoted article were presenting this.

 

[SilverX]

A weak launch is nothing to celebrate and rest easy over, especially when their competitor has hundreds of millions of more dollars to burn before they call it quits.

I have no interest in Stadia, but they have said many times that this is the infantile stages of streaming, that ISPs need to solve data issues over time, etc.

Google is still going to pursue this for years to come, so why would Sony and MS have "lost their fear" when Stadia has barely entered the market? No major company would let their guard down like that.

 

[Dunlop]

Gaming cloud is probably seen as a huge growth opportunity. Azure is the driver to Microsoft's current growth.

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And do you think that a team with over a decade of experience and tens of millions of customers with Xbox as well as the company that created Azure in any way panicked? It's ridiculous