Stadia Review Thread

Eoin · Nov 19, 2019

shimon said:

I agree with Schreier that Google now has a big enough investment in the industry that it's not going to leave the industry suddenly.

However, I'm not sure that necessarily means that they will have to stick with Stadia. Their game development efforts could potentially be directed towards other platforms.

Plinkerton said:
What Google seem to be banking on is that there's an untapped market who are just clamouring to play Final Fantasy XV but haven't found the right platform yet. Does that audience actually exist?

I think it actually might exist, although probably right now it's a latent market. There's lots of people who have been introduced to games in general in the past ten years through mobile games, and statistically there must be some percentage of them who are ready to expand their gaming tastes to other types of games.

Even if that market exists, though, it won't automatically buy into a new platform even if that platform is super convenient for them - it would be a market that needed to be carefully nurtured with the right product, and there's no indication that Stadia is that product.

Blade Wolf · Nov 19, 2019

You know what, I will wait for Stadia 2

Mantorok · Nov 19, 2019

It's funny how they're being compared to MS, when Xbox released it was on such a stable established model, and they knew they were going to lose money for many, many years before they became profitable. But the product worked.

This, however, is not comparable, it's failing before it's even out, this could be another Dreamcast, or worse Jaguar64.

Plinkerton · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
One thing to note is that they HAD to launch this year. With new consoles coming out, in addition to 22+ other cloud gaming/streaming services in market, in 2020, this was their window. They will have to take lessons learned and make sure that, one year from now, it can stand up to the onslaught of new consoles because that is what they will be compared to by the general public.

I don't necessarily disagree but I'd push back on this just a bit; they could have launched this as an "early access" thing and let it sit in beta for a year or two. Google is a big enough name that they could have sustained and slowly built interest as new features were added, while everyone else scrambles for a big launch push at the end of next year. It might just be marketing semantics but if they'd been clear about what to expect then it would have avoided a lot of the negative response.

ken_matthews · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
It works mostly well, for an indeterminate amount of time and location.

The real problem is that they WAY over promised at GDC. They could have avoided so much of this if they had changed a bit of the market focus, game types, and set proper expectations. Instead, they discussed future state things like 8K, less than zero latency, better than local console, etc.

One thing to note is that they HAD to launch this year. With new consoles coming out, in addition to 22+ other cloud gaming/streaming services in market, in 2020, this was their window. They will have to take lessons learned and make sure that, one year from now, it can stand up to the onslaught of new consoles because that is what they will be compared to by the general public.

I think those are all valid criticisms, and frankly the more honest and interesting conversation to have. I don't know why they felt they had to launch it this year when the next gen consoles are right around the corner. If their platform cannot beat the high end PC experience right now, then what are they expecting when next-gen hits? Plus their launch lineup doesn't really offer anything interesting, and it seems like most people agree on that point. They should have waited till they could offer a better game catalog, along with some compelling platform exclusives. And if their plan is to scale up the power to eventually match next-gen, then that is a mistake. They should have come out the gate with the next-gen experience. If they could have provided that before the new systems hit, then I think a lot of people would be interested and it could possibly have given them a head start over Sony and Microsoft's new consoles. Maybe Google's internal view is that this is like a public beta with the idea to have all the issues worked out in time for next gen.

Plinkerton · Nov 19, 2019

Eoin said:
I think it actually might exist, although probably right now it's a latent market. There's lots of people who have been introduced to games in general in the past ten years through mobile games, and statistically there must be some percentage of them who are ready to expand their gaming tastes to other types of games.

Even if that market exists, though, it won't automatically buy into a new platform even if that platform is super convenient for them - it would be a market that needed to be carefully nurtured with the right product, and there's no indication that Stadia is that product.

Oh I'm sure those people do exist to some extent but then the questions are;

- Firstly what have they been waiting for over the last decade? Is the problem really that it costs £200 for a new console and that's stopping people jumping in?
- Secondly, is that audience big enough to sustain a platform which undoubtedly has considerable running costs like Stadia, and will they stick around long-term?

I just think the cross section of people who (i) are interested in getting into gaming (ii) can't afford the upfront cost of a console (iii) have good enough internet for Stadia and (iv) will continue to be interested and invested for the long-term is extremely small. And that's the market Google is banking on. I think out of those 4, the last one is most crucial for Stadia; there's surely no way the platform can be profitable if people are just buying one or two games a year on it.

Tim · Nov 19, 2019

Did any reviewers try Football manager? Curious about load times there.

llLeonhart · Nov 19, 2019

sleepr said:
That's the weird thing for me. In my experience with PS Now the input lag was definitely huge, I couldn't even play FPS or fighthing games but on geforce now it works fantastic, it's a completely different experience.

I have fiber 100/100 mbps btw.

Maybe Geforce now has servers closer to where you are located.

Fact is, so far there isn't a magic solution to latency. And it'll never be the same as playing locally. There's inherently gonna be a delay between a button press and that button press being sent over to the servers.

riotous · Nov 19, 2019

Alucardx23 said:
I asked you a simple question and you did not answer. I definitely need good luck to find someone honest to talk to. Most people seem to be like you on the internet.

How is he dishonest when he ASKED whether the tech was available at launch?

Not that you'll see this.. since you put me on ignore after you got banned for harassing me across multiple threads.. to falsely accuse me of lying.

Hoo-doo · Nov 19, 2019

Guess what, xCloud and Sony's streaming solutions are going to suck just the same. Local play will remain king for many years in terms of IQ and latency.

Anthony Hopkins · Nov 19, 2019

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Well the current Stadia performance isn't matching what you would expect from a Vega 56 GPU. We don't know what the CPU is, could be Jaguar-based. We don't know what the memory system looks like and I doubt't Stadia will be able to match the SSD I/o performance of next-gen consoles without an upgrade.

A solution looking for a problem to solve... like I've been saying all along. I agree.

All the Phil Harrison in the world hasn't saved them from this disaster of a launch. Phil if anything is more of a marketing hype guy. He knows how to drum up hype for something, but he's always seemed far removed from the realities of the strategic business decisions that actually make or break a product/service.

If stadia does get next gen multiplats I bet they won't be to different from the ps5/scarlett versions aside from a 300 - 500p res reduction.
The stadia cpu is not jaguar lol, jag can't go higher then 2.4ghz. The memory of stadia is 16gb hbm @448gbps, which will be around on par with next gens gddr6.

Elephant · Nov 19, 2019

I believe in streaming. I believe we'll all consume our games this way in the not too distant future. Google is letting itself down by it's service. A cheap subscription model would have been the way to go in my opinion. Once the next Playstation and Xbox arrive, with a brand new focus on their own streaming service (with the libraries to back them up), Stadia will be an afterthought.

Google isn't doomed though, this isn't some small start up company, I'm sure they'll bounce back strongly. There's no reason that Stadia can't succeed with an amended business plan that knows its audience. I hope they do, because it's cool tech with some good integration ideas behind it.

dadoes · Nov 19, 2019

Arkaign said:
It's even more than people simply noticing small issues with performance. Stadia style streaming can have you die, crash your race, or get owned in your sports/fighting game due to a single blip in your internet connection. Roommate firing up Hulu or Netflix 4k, while their phone starts an OS update, your Soviet 1973-quality Comcast modem/router gets saturated, and boom you're Stadia stream barfs on you. Only takes a few seconds or less to ruin an entire gaming session for a lot of titles if it blips at the wrong moment.

yep.. i experienced this during the beta with assassins creed odyssey. It was working fine if i had my internet all to myself, but once my kids started using the computer and watching youtube and whatnot, my experience went to crap.

And yes, I did configure my qos on my router. didn't help much.

plus, i used up all my internet data cap for the month just streaming the game.

Its a complete non starter for me.

chromatic9 · Nov 19, 2019

Plinkerton said:
I guess the point is that Google have pushed this whole thing as "play anywhere on any device" so is it wrong for people to expect a similar experience across devices? It's absolutely valid that reviewers should focus on real world test cases, like playing on a TV with a wireless connection, rather than the specific perfect scenarios that Google want you to play at.

Yes it's a fair point for the reviewers. Most people I know rely on a newer style wireless router hub that comes from their ISP and the routers have been heavily marketed this way. I have ethernet cable around the house and disable the wifi because I know how shit it is.

Proven · Nov 19, 2019

Hoo-doo said:
Guess what, xCloud and Sony's streaming solutions are going to suck just the same. Local play will remain king for many years in terms of IQ and latency.

I don't think the tech is the issue, stadia as a platform just sucks

Beer Monkey · Nov 19, 2019

Proven said:
I don't think the tech is the issue, stadia as a platform just sucks

It's literally the best streaming ever done before as a platform.

You can be the very best but the laws of physics will still apply.

carlosrox · Nov 19, 2019

Is the market not already full with 3 major players with their established audiences?

Seems like congestion to me. People already have way too much choice... like, everyone has a massive backlog these days.

I don't have the time, money, or interest in basically anything Google has to offer. I already don't like Google, and half assing their first foray into games isn't helping.

I already have 3 players in this game who know what they're doing to choose from. There's already more than enough stuff out there competing for my attention. I can't even keep up with the releases on ONE platform.

Fredrik · Nov 19, 2019

carlosrox said:
Is the market not already full with 3 major players with their established audiences?

Seems like congestion to me. People already have way too much choice... like, everyone has a massive backlog these days.

I don't have the time, money, or interest in basically anything Google has to offer. I already don't like Google, and half assing their first foray into games isn't helping.

I already have 3 players in this game who know what they're doing to choose from. There's already more than enough stuff out there competing for my attention. I can't even keep up with the releases on ONE platform.

It'll definitely be difficult to stay at only one platform going forward, everyone have excusives and Sony and MS buys studios left and right now. But competition is great. Without Stadia we wouldn't get xcloud included in Game Pass, I think that came as a result from MS listening to the complaints for Stadia's pricing.

XDevil666 · Nov 19, 2019

I find it odd how the mainstream media is putting across that stadia is a revolution with streaming gaming, how have the tech failed to mention current and previous OnLive, PSNow, GeForce, XCloud beta etc

senj · Nov 19, 2019

XDevil666 said:
I find it odd how the mainstream media is putting across that stadia is a revolution with streaming gaming, how have the tech failed to mention current and previous OnLive, PSNow, GeForce, XCloud beta etc

If there's one thing Google Marketing has gotten really good at, it's getting the media to buy into the idea that something they're putting out is a revolutionary first try at something. At one point they had outlets praising the Pixel as "Google's first phone" as if the Nexus line had just vanished from history.

XDevil666 · Nov 19, 2019

senj said:
If there's one thing Google Marketing has gotten really good at, it's getting the media to buy into the idea that something they're putting out is a revolutionary first try at something. At one point they had outlets praising the Pixel as "Google's first phone" as if the Nexus line had just vanished from history.

Bet they invited them to the google lounge to take a few selfies in and post some hashtags lol

MHWilliams · Nov 19, 2019

XDevil666 said:
I find it odd how the mainstream media is putting across that stadia is a revolution with streaming gaming, how have the tech failed to mention current and previous OnLive, PSNow, GeForce, XCloud beta etc

Who is "mainstream media"?

Arkaign · Nov 19, 2019

XDevil666 said:
I find it odd how the mainstream media is putting across that stadia is a revolution with streaming gaming, how have the tech failed to mention current and previous OnLive, PSNow, GeForce, XCloud beta etc

Google carries a lot of weight due to domination of advertising and monetization of online web. Kind of makes journalistic coverage of this tougher to parse.

thebishop · Nov 19, 2019

Based on the reviews, what's missing and inadequate about Stadia (on day one) are things which nobody would argue cannot be solved/changed/improved. The thing they executed effectively on is the thing that most people previously thought was impossible. So far Stadia is the only service delivering 4k/60fps streaming with latency that is down to a level that most players won't notice/care about. What I've tried from XCloud is far better than Sony and Nvidia's offerings, but still has latency issues, and (so far) only works on smartphones. There's a lot of time between now and Cyberpunk to get iphones working, get the controller connected over wifi for all platforms, integrate the store into the gamepad UI, etc.

Kyougar · Nov 19, 2019

unfashionable said:
hah was wondering how we'd know if the thing actually flopped and thats pretty much proof. Amazingly poor launch phil harrison had to know this would flop at launch

Most likely scenario now is a launch 2.0 with subscription like game pass (but with a lot of indie games filling out the roster) with the combo of the Free version stadia base (and you can use your own controllers), and youtube promotion/features. $0 cost of entry means at that point a lot of people would at least try it.

Phil Harrison could make a Perpetuum Mobile and would fumble the launch.

Proven · Nov 19, 2019

Beer Monkey said:
It's literally the best streaming ever done before as a platform.

You can be the very best but the laws of physics will still apply.

No I get that, I think the stadia platform sucks. The UI and features are missing or bad, the games offered are old, there's no gamepass or PSNOW equivalent. If Xbox launched xCloud today with gamepass and all of the Xbox live features this would have been recieved much much better.

giallo · Nov 19, 2019

You'd think of all areas in the world that would be able to launch something like this successfully it would be Silicon Valley.

It's bizarre to see how poor Stadia is being received. They must have known it was going to be bad, but by that time, it was too late.

Jakisthe · Nov 19, 2019

Glad to see the Venturebeat one mention how embarrassing it is to be playing games in public. I live in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley, I sometimes work with video game companies, and I have never see anyone over the age of 12 playing a game in public - and usually the parents of those kids are looking around sheepishly. The public perception just isn't there.

MHWilliams · Nov 19, 2019

Jakisthe said:
Glad to see the Venturebeat one mention how embarrassing it is to be playing games in public. I live in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley, I sometimes work with video game companies, and I have never see anyone over the age of 12 playing a game in public - and usually the parents of those kids are looking around sheepishly. The public perception just isn't there.

I go into that in this article on testing Google Stadia out in the wild.

Deleted member 36708 · Nov 19, 2019

🤷🏾‍♂️

Jawmuncher · Nov 19, 2019

So you can't play Stadia without a friend invite or buying the $130 bundle until 2020?

III-V · Nov 19, 2019

Jawmuncher said:
So you can't play Stadia without a friend invite or buying the $130 bundle until 2020?

Correct. This is a soft launch only for people who purchased at or after the reveal.

TAoVG · Nov 19, 2019

Jakisthe said:
Glad to see the Venturebeat one mention how embarrassing it is to be playing games in public. I live in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley, I sometimes work with video game companies, and I have never see anyone over the age of 12 playing a game in public - and usually the parents of those kids are looking around sheepishly. The public perception just isn't there.

Why the hell should anyone be embarrassed to play a game in a public place like a Starbucks? If that is what embarrasses someone, they must not be very confident and/or think WAY too much about other's opinions. What a bizarre comment to make.

Shit, I busted out a Switch at a pretty swank bar in LA and had people playing, men and women, 1-2-Switch in a matter of minutes.

No different from watching video, listening to music, etc.

BlueManifest · Nov 19, 2019

How's everyone doing that's playing?

Lulu · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
Why the hell should anyone be embarrassed to play a game in a public place like a Starbucks? If that is what embarrasses someone, they must not be very confident. What a bizarre comment to make.

Shit, I busted out a Switch at a pretty swank bar in LA and had people playing, men and women, 1-2-Switch in a matter of minutes.

No different from watching video, listening to music, etc.

It's not uncommon to see adults playing Switch on the subway here in NYC either.

Swift_Gamer · Nov 19, 2019

Good, i really dont want more from Google. We haver enough of It dominating our lives as It is

Eggiem · Nov 19, 2019

Jawmuncher said:
So you can't play Stadia without a friend invite or buying the $130 bundle until 2020?

The fact that people even have to ask questions like this speaks volumes.

BizzyBum · Nov 19, 2019

A few good exclusives wouldn't have hurt.

Swift_Gamer · Nov 19, 2019

ken_matthews said:
Because people aren't actually reading the reviews.

From Arstechnica:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...ngs-future-but-in-the-present-it-looks-rough/

I am going to keep pointing this out. It seems like most of the issues are from playing via a wireless connection through the Chromecast, but nobody wants to talk about the rather good wired/wireless experience through the browser (image quality issues aside). Instead everybody just wants to proclaim Stadia as an immediate failure. This thread is making me lose hope in humanity.

Yeah, except people wont play cabled. Its a failure and boy am I Glad.

Swift_Gamer · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
It works mostly well, for an indeterminate amount of time and location.

The real problem is that they WAY over promised at GDC. They could have avoided so much of this if they had changed a bit of the market focus, game types, and set proper expectations. Instead, they discussed future state things like 8K, less than zero latency, better than local console, etc.

One thing to note is that they HAD to launch this year. With new consoles coming out, in addition to 22+ other cloud gaming/streaming services in market, in 2020, this was their window. They will have to take lessons learned and make sure that, one year from now, it can stand up to the onslaught of new consoles because that is what they will be compared to by the general public.

Yeah, Sorry but until they have a the last of us or a Mario, its not going to happen. Its been proved time and again that software matters.

carlosrox · Nov 19, 2019

III-V said:
Correct. This is a soft launch only for people who purchased at or after the reveal.

So who the fuck was that launch trailer for??????

Tobor · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
Why the hell should anyone be embarrassed to play a game in a public place like a Starbucks? If that is what embarrasses someone, they must not be very confident and/or think WAY too much about other's opinions. What a bizarre comment to make.

Shit, I busted out a Switch at a pretty swank bar in LA and had people playing, men and women, 1-2-Switch in a matter of minutes.

No different from watching video, listening to music, etc.

The Switch looks fairly normal. A phone on bracket with a wire coming out of it strapped to a controller will draw some attention.

TAoVG · Nov 19, 2019

Tobor said:
The Switch looks fairly normal. A phone on bracket with a wire coming out of it strapped to a controller will draw some attention.

Again, so what if it looks different and people stare. Who cares?

orochi91 · Nov 19, 2019

TAoVG said:
Again, so what if it looks different and people stare. Who cares?

Eh? People don't wanna stick out in public like that.

Gaming still has a bit of a stigma, particularly in public environments.

cakely · Nov 19, 2019

Jakisthe said:
Glad to see the Venturebeat one mention how embarrassing it is to be playing games in public. I live in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley, I sometimes work with video game companies, and I have never see anyone over the age of 12 playing a game in public - and usually the parents of those kids are looking around sheepishly. The public perception just isn't there.

I remember hearing the exact same thing from Nokia when they were trying to sell the Ngage.

legend166 · Nov 20, 2019

skeezx said:
assuming Switch is the last mainstream dedicated portable mobile streaming is probably the future of playing "real" games portably. though that's regardless of whether stadia actually breaks into that mindshare or if there's going to be serious demand for it any time soon (IMO we're still about 5-10 years removed from that)

You really think Stadia is going to become a suitable solution for portable gaming in the next 3 years (before a potential Switch 2)?

The biggest mobile data cap you can get in Australia is 150GB. Mobile data is still a long, long, long way away from having the bandwidth of fixed line broadband.

Jakisthe · Nov 20, 2019

TAoVG said:
Why the hell should anyone be embarrassed to play a game in a public place like a Starbucks? If that is what embarrasses someone, they must not be very confident and/or think WAY too much about other's opinions. What a bizarre comment to make.

Shit, I busted out a Switch at a pretty swank bar in LA and had people playing, men and women, 1-2-Switch in a matter of minutes.

No different from watching video, listening to music, etc.

I didn't say anyone *should* be embarrassed, I said people *are* embarrassed. It would be great if playing games in public was as widespread and accepted as watching a video or listening to music, but by and large, the public perception is simply not there.

Tobor · Nov 20, 2019

TAoVG said:
Again, so what if it looks different and people stare. Who cares?

I wouldn't care how it looks myself, but I see why others might. It is pretty goofy looking. I never see people out and about with full sized controllers strapped to phones, even though those brackets have been available for a while now. Add in the wire and it's even goofier.

I do see people playing on Switch, but it tends to be kids. Not judging at all, just my observation. I have played the switch in the airport and don't care what anyone thinks.

Putting aside appearance, I wouldn't want to lug all that crap around. At least the switch is one solid unit.

Sir_Caffeine · Nov 20, 2019

legend166 said:
You really think Stadia is going to become a suitable solution for portable gaming in the next 3 years (before a potential Switch 2)?

The biggest mobile data cap you can get in Australia is 150GB. Mobile data is still a long, long, long way away from having the bandwidth of fixed line broadband.

My entire family has unlimited data on their phones. It's not that uncommon here in Sweden. 4g speeds and 5g on the horizon tells me this should work fine... Over here at least.

Bruceleeroy · Nov 20, 2019

MHWilliams said:
I go into that in this article on testing Google Stadia out in the wild.

Goodness

Stadia Review Thread

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