The Past, Present and Future of Google Stadia with John Justice

Alucardx23 · Dec 17, 2020

Key points:

Google is working w/ ISPs on Data Caps

"John says that Google is "working" with ISPs on the topic of data caps, either trying to improve those caps or remove them entirely. How will that go? It remains to be seen, but whether you like Stadia or not, that's the kind of move that is good for quite literally everyone."

Stadia tech will be upgraded, but 'you won't see us talking about it'

"Google touted one huge benefit of cloud gaming was the ability to swap out the hardware behind it when something new is available. John didn't have anything specific to share, but he said that Google is "definitely working on upgrading every part" of the hardware that powers Stadia. When? We'll know after it's actually happened."

Google won't overpromise for Stadia… anymore

"John and the rest of the Stadia team are making a point not to overpromise anymore. In the 2019 launch of Stadia, Google made huge promises such as 4k60, revolutionary new features, and so much more. Yet, at least, very few of those promises actually panned out which, frankly, is a huge part of the reason why so many people are against Stadia.

John says that this is one of the big lessons Stadia learned in 2020, and that, as a rule, Google is making a point not to talk about features before they're ready, and that's something we've been seeing. Over the past few months, features like YouTube livestreaming, messaging, Family Sharing, redesigned UIs, and more have been noticed by the community long before Google made a formal announcement. That'll be the pattern going forward as Google allows word of mouth to make the community happy when these new features are delivered."

Google's John Justice talks Stadia plans, data caps, Android TV, and not overpromising [Video]

Google's head of product for Stadia, John Justice, recently did an interview where he talked about not overpromising and much more.

9to5google.com

dark494 · Dec 17, 2020

Not gonna hold out hope, but would be nice to not feel like a 3rd world country when it comes to internet...

Alucardx23 · Dec 17, 2020

dark494 said:
Not gonna hold out hope, but would be nice to not feel like a 3rd world country when it comes to internet...

It would be awesome if they can manage to do this in general, but I see this more as Google making a deal with ISPs, so only when someone uses Stadia, it will not consume their data cap.

bdbdbd · Dec 17, 2020

Eh, I'd like to see some lead time and preview of new features, just not a year or more. In any case, it was never a particularly great reason to be "against" Stadia and mostly just a scapegoat for the game community's weird oxymoronic fear of new tech.

jman2050 · Dec 17, 2020

Google is working w/ ISPs on Data Caps

"John says that Google is "working" with ISPs on the topic of data caps, either trying to improve those caps or remove them entirely. How will that go? It remains to be seen[...]"

Wrexis · Dec 17, 2020

Of course they're working with ISPs.
Stadia Pro can use 20GB/hour, so play 15 hours a week and that's 1.2TB a month. That's crazy.

Deleted member 76797 · Dec 17, 2020

does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

jman2050 · Dec 17, 2020

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

It's not terrible honestly. Triggers feel a bit weird but it feels about as good as your typical console controller.

PianoBlack · Dec 17, 2020

Wrexis said:
Of course they're working with ISPs.
Stadia Pro can use 20GB/hour, so play 15 hours a week and that's 1.2TB a month. That's crazy.

Yeah I was enjoying some stadia until I realized how much it was using and got a notice from Comcast (fuck Comcast).

olimpia84 · Dec 17, 2020

I can't believe data caps are a thing.

Alucardx23 · Dec 17, 2020

Wrexis said:
Of course they're working with ISPs.
Stadia Pro can use 20GB/hour, so play 15 hours a week and that's 1.2TB a month. That's crazy.

The average play time is 6 hours per week and 61.4% of the people consume less than 250GB per month out of their 1TB data cap. Whether or not 20GB of data per hour is overkill will depend on each user scenario. If your datacap is 50GB per month, then of course cloud gaming is not an option to you, if you play more than one hour every month. At 4K Stadia will consume around 20GB per hour, if you take the average 6 hour per week gaming time, that is equal to 120GB per week or 480GB per month, still within the 1TB data cap most people seem to have.

Deleted member 86891 · Dec 17, 2020

bdbdbd said:
Eh, I'd like to see some lead time and preview of new features, just not a year or more. In any case, it was never a particularly great reason to be "against" Stadia and mostly just a scapegoat for the game community's weird oxymoronic fear of new tech.

personally I honestly wouldn't ever be able to stand the input lag that comes from streaming games. whether or not it predicts your movements or whatever, I wouldn't be able to deal with what according to PC Gamer is about 2x the input lag of a local PC when both are at 1080p. and it's worse when at 4k. I'm not against new tech in general, in fact I'm looking forward to the future of VR and really want to get a VR headset soon!

Alucardx23 · Dec 17, 2020

ointment said:
personally I honestly wouldn't ever be able to stand the input lag that comes from streaming games. whether or not it predicts your movements or whatever, I wouldn't be able to deal with what according to PC Gamer is about 2x the input lag of a local PC when both are at 1080p. and it's worse when at 4k. I'm not against new tech in general, in fact I'm looking forward to the future of VR and really want to get a VR headset soon!

That's a misconception people have with cloud gaming. Cloud gaming doesn't necessarily mean more input latency, when compared to local consoles/PCs. Input lag is the time it takes for you to see the result of a button you pressed on the screen, in that sense every game out there has input lag. What people really mean when they complain about input lag, is when it gets to a point where it affects the gameplay for them. The latency you will get to a game running on the cloud will depend on the game itself, how far you are to the data center, your local network configuration, among other factors. When you realize all of this, then you know that a game running in the cloud can have less latency compared to other local solutions. Something that directly affects input lag is framerate, the higher the framerate the lower the input lag. Compare the 15/20fps per second Cyberpunk runs at on the Xbox One, with the mostly stable 60fps on Stadia. By running a game at a higher framerate in the cloud, it can compensate for the added network latency, when compared to the same game running locally at a lower framerate.

According to this video, the latency on Doom Eternal was reduced by 37ms after a patch. The patch notes say this improvement was only made for the Stadia version of the game. The total input latency was measured to be at 83ms. Out of that number 15ms were for the ping to the Stadia server, 3ms to encode and decode the video and 65ms for the local game running at the Stadia server. Adding all of this up, is how we reach 83ms. The Xbox One X version of Doom Eternal was measured to have 94ms of input latency by Digital Foundry. This means that the person that measured the latency after the patch, was playing Doom Eternal with an 11ms reduction in latency, compared to the Digital Foundry test.

Another example with objetive data from DF is Red Dead 2 on Stadia VS Xbox One X. This right here shows that the Stadia version could absorb 49ms of network latency and still have a lower latency than the Xbox One X version. With any game that has a higher framerate on the server side vs the local side, we can expect things like this to happen, depending on your latency to the server.

resultant · Dec 17, 2020

I can't imagine having a data cap anymore, but I know that's a reality for a lot of the US.

I haven't dug too deep, but I can't believe that most ISPs seemingly don't do the Comcast thing of letting you pay an extra $30/month to get unlimited data at any speed. It's not like its a good service, but at least it lets you get unlimited if you really need it.

While I agree that the data caps will be an enormous barrier for many people, I also think that overlap of people who can afford the unlimited internet tiers and people who are willing to invest in cloud gaming is probably significant enough that Stadia could do well for the time being.

Deleted member 86891 · Dec 17, 2020

Alucardx23 said:
That's a misconception people have with cloud gaming. Cloud gaming doesn't necessarily mean more input latency, when compared to other local consoles/PCs. Input lag is the time it takes for you to see the result of a button you pressed on the screen, in that sense every game out there has input lag. What people really mean when they complain about input lag, is when it gets to a point where it affects the gameplay for them. The latency you will get to a game running on the cloud will depend on the game itself, how far you are to the data center, your local network configuration, among other factors. When you realize all of this, then you know that a game running in the cloud can have less latency compared to other local solutions. Something that directly affects input lag is framerate, the higher the framerate the lower the input lag. Compare the 15/20fps per second Cyberpunk runs at on the Xbox One, with the mostly stable 60fps on Stadia. By running a game at a higher framerate in the cloud, it can compensate for the added network latency, when compared to the same game running locally at a lower framerate.

According to this video, the latency on Doom Eternal was reduced by 37ms after a patch. The patch notes say this improvement was only made for the Stadia version of the game. The total input latency was measured to be at 83ms. Out of that number 15ms were for the ping to the Stadia server, 3ms to encode and decode the video and 65ms for the local game running at the Stadia server. Adding all of this up, is how we reach 83ms. The Xbox One X version of Doom Eternal was measured to have 94ms of input latency by Digital Foundry. This means that the person that measured the latency after the patch, was playing Doom Eternal with an 11ms reduction in latency, compared to the Digital Foundry test.

Another example with objetive data from DF is Red Dead 2 on Stadia VS Xbox One X. This right here shows that the Stadia version could absorb 49ms of network latency and still have a lower latency than the Xbox One X version. With any game that has a higher framerate on the server side vs the local side, we can expect things like this to happen, depending on your latency to the server.

I'm gonna assume the standard is 60 fps for most purposes. I actually play games at the max fps my PC can handle, which is usually 100 or so, but I'm definitely a minority in that sense, so it's not really relevant. but I feel like input lag from low FPS is kind of just as bad as input lag from needing to stream the video feed of the game itself. like I'd complain if a new game locked me at 20 fps.
re: the first screenshot, is there any stat for PC that isn't triple buffered? because if I'm not mistaken, frame buffering results in increased latency. that's why I always turn off vsync.
thanks for the info, still reading through it. however:
another issue I have with Stadia is that I don't like the concept of basically needing to pay a Netflix subscription just to be permitted to purchase movies full price on Netflix, since that's essentially what Stadia is as a service.

NookSports · Dec 17, 2020

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

I like it better than the Xbox one controller.

To be honest, I was very skeptical of stadia, but got the cyberpunk /controller / chrome cast offer and it's won me over.

Service is great. It doesn't feel much different , at least for games like Cyberpunk, and even some SP destiny was good

Alucardx23 · Dec 17, 2020

ointment said:
I'm gonna assume the standard is 60 fps for most purposes. I actually play games at the max fps my PC can handle, which is usually 100 or so, but I'm definitely a minority in that sense, so it's not really relevant. but I feel like input lag from low FPS is kind of just as bad as input lag from needing to stream the video feed of the game itself. like I'd complain if a new game locked me at 20 fps.
re: the first screenshot, is there any stat for PC that isn't triple buffered? because if I'm not mistaken, frame buffering results in increased latency. that's why I always turn off vsync.
thanks for the info, still reading through it. however:
another issue I have with Stadia is that I don't like the concept of basically needing to pay a Netflix subscription just to be permitted to purchase movies full price on Netflix, since that's essentially what Stadia is as a service.

Don't remember if there was an option to use double buffer on the PC version. Need to see the video again, but in any case, the important comparison is the Stadia VS the Xbox One X version. See how the Xbox One X version has 50ms more of input lag compared to the Stadia version. You could increase the network latency by 30ms more and the Stadia version would still have 20ms less of input lag. That is the general idea here, if the game running on the cloud has less input latency compared to the local version of the game, then that lower latency can compensate for the time it takes to stream the game over to someone's house. This of course doesn't happen every time, but I just want to make clear that cloud gaming is not equal to a higher input lag, when it is compared to every single posible version of a game running locally.

Rook · Dec 17, 2020

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

It feels way better than it looks. It's a respectable controller!

NightHamAlum · Dec 17, 2020

I must admit, I was a doubter of the tech involved but I used the trial version with some friends. Did rounds of Sniper Elite 4 and Destiny 2 and it was a BLAST. I was amazed at how good it felt to play and the latency was non-existent. Yes, I was playing with an Ethernet connection. Honestly, Destiny 2 might be the best played on Stadia because of how quickly you can fire up a game with friends in a pinch on any device.

The tech is excellent. I'm sold on that front.

My larger, overarching issue is Google themselves. They are just about the worst company when it comes to actually patiently investing in a service and staying firmly committed to it. Any Android owner can attest to this reality.

I'm not convinced Google will stay committed to Stadia in a few years but I REALLY hope I'm wrong. It's excellent tech.

EDIT: Also a fun thing to note is after the PC version, the next best version of Cyberpunk 2077 might well be the Stadia version lmao.

DonnieTC · Dec 17, 2020

Great summary! Some interesting little tidbits in that interview.

Wrexis said:
Of course they're working with ISPs.
Stadia Pro can use 20GB/hour, so play 15 hours a week and that's 1.2TB a month. That's crazy.

I do think the 20GB/hour is a worse case scenario. Granted streaming 4k will add up but I've been using Stadia quite a bit over the past couple of months and my total usage per month (this includes everything including Netflix, YouTube, PC/other consoles, etc) is around 900 to 1100 GB. This month for example I have 9 days left in my billing cycle and I've used around 743 GB. It's just me though but I do game 99 percent of the time on the CCU which is 4k and HDR. I'm also on AT&T fiber with unlimited so don't have to worry about hitting a cap.

My most recently played games for example:

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

Feels great to me! Honestly second favorite controller of recent memory (behind Xbox). Only thing I don't like about it is the short battery life (usually get 8 to 10 hours per charge) however it does use USB-C so charges relatively fast.

Deleted member 4198 · Dec 18, 2020

ointment said:
another issue I have with Stadia is that I don't like the concept of basically needing to pay a Netflix subscription just to be permitted to purchase movies full price on Netflix, since that's essentially what Stadia is as a service.

You don't need the Stadia subscription to purchase and play games, the subscription just unlocks 4k streams.

Bradford · Dec 18, 2020

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

It is the only part of Stadia I actually liked when I tried it. It's not a fantastic controller but it is solid and has some good heft.

bdbdbd · Dec 18, 2020

NightHamAlum said:
They are just about the worst company when it comes to actually patiently investing in a service and staying firmly committed to it. Any Android owner can attest to this reality.

*cocks head* Of all the examples you could have picked, Android is just about the worst example to highlight Google's lack of commitment.

NightHamAlum · Dec 18, 2020

bdbdbd said:
*cocks head* Of all the examples you could have picked, Android is just about the worst example to highlight Google's lack of commitment.

I probably should not have said Android globally but a swath of software and services certainly.

It's not hard to see a future where Stadia winds up on this website in 1-2 years. https://killedbygoogle.com/

That's my fear.

Dad_and_Videogames · Dec 18, 2020

I have a pretty good gaming PC, but I've been playing Valhalla and Cyberpunk for about 6 hours after work with no issues whatsoever. Both good games I'm thoroughly enjoying. I love that I can play at my PC, on one of the free CCUs I got (1 for Youtube, 1 with Cyberpunk), I can play on my living room TV (Also with a CCU), on my iPad or phone on the couch or at the office.

It's really cool to be able to do that. My only complaint is the small catalog on offer, but honestly you own about 80% of it if you subscribe to Pro. People who talk about the Netflix of games, this comes fairly close. Even if you never bought a game outright, and just subbed to Pro, there's a lot of free content.

Look, I'm still building a newer PC. I love gaming. This doesn't have to be an all or nothing affair. You can love PCs or consoles, AND realize how cool it is to be able to play Cyberpunk at work.

I laughed Stadia off even after I got my first free CCU/Controller. I played Destiny 2 for a few minutes and it was servicable. I put it away and didn't think much of it. Then I saw they were giving away another CCU/Controller combo with Cyberpunk preorders and I started imagining the possibilites; anywhere in the house I can play. That's not entirely novel since I own a Switch, but not having to bring anything but the phone I already carry to the office, and just keeping a controller in my desk? That's awesome.

They also have some really deep sales. I got the ultimate Borderlands 3 collection for $10, Ghost Recon Breakpoint for $0.67 with a coupon, and Zombie Army 4 for $10 too.

It's a cool interface and the first year has been rocky, but I feel they're pulling their heads out of their asses over at Google now. My instagram is full of gorgeous pics I've taken of Night City. Could my PC run Cyberpunk better? Sure, with ray tracing and all, but there's something about the fact of The Cloud that won me over.

I'm interested to see where Google goes with this. I hope and feel they'll stick with it. I hope they do start upgrading their hardware as well, so Stadia can continue to keep up with the consoles. Before long the Series X and PS5 will leave it in the dust if Google dawdles.

iamsgod · Dec 18, 2020

dark494 said:
Not gonna hold out hope, but would be nice to not feel like a 3rd world country when it comes to internet...

hey even we don't have internet cap

oofouchugh · Dec 18, 2020

How can they get other ISPs to chill on data caps when not even Google Fi does it

LongLivePlay94 · Dec 18, 2020

Bit of an oxymoron when it doesn't have much of a past, it's present is dire and the future doesn't look too promising.

Rodrigues solitaire · Dec 18, 2020

NightHamAlum said:
I probably should not have said Android globally but a swath of software and services certainly.

It's not hard to see a future where Stadia winds up on this website in 1-2 years. https://killedbygoogle.com/

That's my fear.

Only took 24 posts this time, Era is slacking

Pryme · Dec 18, 2020

bdbdbd said:
*cocks head* Of all the examples you could have picked, Android is just about the worst example to highlight Google's lack of commitment.

i think he means stuff like all their messaging apps they've launched and killed on Android.

that said, I don't think they're going to be closing down Stadia anytime soon. You get the feeling that they're in this for the long haul, and the delays in full ramp up for xbox and Sony's cloud gaming services have opened the door for Google.

It remains to be seen how relevant it'll be when there's more than enough stock of the next gen consoles and they have their cloud services fully ready.

RestEerie · Dec 18, 2020

Is John Justice a character from the Judge Dredd or Punisher comics?

Alucardx23 · Dec 18, 2020

NightHamAlum said:
I probably should not have said Android globally but a swath of software and services certainly.

It's not hard to see a future where Stadia winds up on this website in 1-2 years. https://killedbygoogle.com/

That's my fear.

Here you go, the killed by Microsoft website, with more killed products and services than Google. You could have done the same exact thing you are doing now with Stadia, but during the time the OG Xbox launched. It wouldn't have been accurate at all to say that Microsoft was going to kill the Xbox, just taking as reference the other products and services they had killed before that. What Google does most of the time is launch free apps to test features and if it works and becomes popular, the features are integrated into other apps. There are also dumb examples on that website, like saying that Google killed their Nexus line of smartphones, when what they did was simply change the name. Everything needs to be judged individually and so far nothing points to Google closing Stadia anytime soon. On the contrary, just recently they announced that anyone with an iOS device can access the service, they launched on 8 additional countries and announced 400 games in development for the service.

Dis · Dec 18, 2020

Honestly after getting gigabit Internet earlier this year and trying stadia more, I've been really impressed with how easy and well it works, there are of course issues due to the overhype they did before launch, not every game will run at 60fps and 4k etc, but for someone who is still using a 1080p tv it's been really awesome. My main issue with stadia was always the risk of Google dropping long term support if it doesn't pan out quickly enough for them, so I'm glad to hear they're still sticking to it and actually resting expectations a bit. I also think the word of mouth idea is a good way forward, that's why I think the strategy of bundling chromecast ultras and stadia controllers with every Google service or preorders like they have been was a good idea, yeah they're eating the loss of those sales but it's getting stadia into more hands due to people thinking they may as well try it if it costs them nothing extra or very little, and for the most part the people I know who have tried it because of that have also been really impressed.

Now I just need them to roll out other stuff to the world, once ubisoft+ is rolled out here next year I'll happily keep a sub for ubisoft+ going to use it on stadia. Honestly though what Google needs to do is roll a big truck of cash up to Activision and EA and have them put Warzone, cod, fifa etc on stadia, I think that if Google can get those big games on there, and get people to try it then word of mouth for stadia could work well. Yes there are going to be people moaning about input latency etc on era but the general public and casual players of cod a lot of the time don't care and haven't even heard of that term. But the idea that you could jump on a game pretty much instantly and play with friends could be a good selling point for stadia when you hear a lot of people pissed about constant patches for warzone that are huge and hard drive space issues, google could really make it clear that you don't have to deal with that and just jump on and play.

MrCarter · Dec 18, 2020

Alucardx23 said:
Here you go, the killed by Microsoft website, with more killed products and services than Google. You could have done the same exact thing you are doing now with Stadia, but during the time the OG Xbox launched. It wouldn't have been accurate at all to say that Microsoft was going to kill the Xbox, just taking as reference the other products and services they had killed before that. What Google does most of the time is launch free apps to test features and if it works and becomes popular, the features are integrated into other apps. There are also dumb examples on that website, like saying that Google killed their Nexus line of smartphones, when what they did was simply change the name. Everything needs to be judged individually and so far nothing points to Google closing Stadia anytime soon. On the contrary, just recently they announced that anyone with an iOS device can access the service, they launched on 8 additional countries and announced 400 games in development for the service.

Good post. I think many are forgetting other companies have had hits in the past but also a LOT of misses. What Google (and Amazon) are doing in this space is impressive and as a big PlayStation consumer they need to get on this avenue as soon as possible. With the studios and content they have they should have no problem in making this a big success. However, I think with them being a predominantly home game console brand it might clash with their core values.

jsnepo · Dec 18, 2020

Which country still has data caps? WTF

Deleted member 9584 · Dec 18, 2020

jsnepo said:
Which country still has data caps? WTF

I live in PA and have Comcast. We never had a date cap but starting next month they are giving us a 1.2TB data cap. It'll be 2021 and they are INSTITUTING a data cap... keep in mind this is during a pandemic where kids statewide are learning remotely via the internet.... it's criminal.

noctix · Dec 18, 2020

Release it in Australia you cowards!

DiipuSurotu · Dec 18, 2020

Lol I thought data caps were only a thing for mobile phones

justiceiro · Dec 18, 2020

RestEerie said:
Is John Justice a character from the Judge Dredd or Punisher comics?

From the Ace attorney games is more likely

OCD Guy · Dec 18, 2020

Alucardx23 said:
and announced 400 games in development for the service.

I'm a fan of Stadia, and been there since day one as a founder. I've tried all the cloud gaming platforms aside from Luna and Stadia is the best in terms of usability.

However my concern is the games, the 400 games in development doesn't really excite me if they're similar to what we've received so far. They announced over 100 games in 2020 and they delivered the numbers, but the quality? For me it's all a bit depressing. The 3 recent games announced really sums up the average type of game we're getting. A 10 year old tombraider game and 4 year old indie game and some game I've never even heard of!

It's mainly indie and old AAA games. I mean. if you remove Ubisoft games from the service there's not much great there at all. Red Dead 2 is the best game on there for me.

Even the free pro games, I've claimed every single one, and I can count on one hand how many I actually like.

I get publishers aren't keen to invest when the return on investment is likely low, but man I hope Stadia starts getting some decent games. Browsing the stadia catalogue kinda reminds me of Switch eShop minus the decent exclusives. With all that shovelware.

They need some good exclusives, not Gylt, Crayta etc. What doesn't help is the people on the "official" stadia reddit. They literally get hyped about any old shit, people need to start speaking up, otherwise Stadia is going to end up being a glorified playstore with similar games.

Right now Stadia is the absolute best game streaming service in terms of how easy it is to use. The image quality is the best with the 4k streaming and input lag is really low. But does it have the best game streaming catalogue? Not at all.

Geforce Now is a pain in the ass to use, and has queues even for founders. The game library is similar to stadia in that it has numbers but not much quality, all the good games were removed.

Xcloud and PS Now have terrible image quality and input lag etc But if Microsoft release that TV stick and increase the resolution with Series X blades Stadia is going to have a hard time, as the game catalgoue on Xcloud is far better in my opinion, as is the PS Now one.

I mean Sony aren't even pushing game streaming, but can you imagine if they wanted to and had all their games on it and increased the resolution to 4k with hdr? Damn it would be game over for me.

While I've rambled on, my point is that Stadia is the winner in terms of technology. and it ain't even close, but man it needs to hurry and get the games library to par. Amazon will have the same issues, all the games their studios have developed have been trash. When cloud gaming really picks up steam and has 50 different offerings, people will go to the ones with the best content....

I_love_potatoes · Dec 18, 2020

Yeah, I don't see ISPs offering a free pass on the data caps for Stadia usage unless Google pays up somehow.

I held the controller and it felt good, but Elite Series 2 controller is hands the down best. I can't go back to no paddles. The issues with the Stadia controller is, if something needs to be fixed, you're going to go through hell and back trying to open it. I watched several teardown videos and they all struggled as it was a pain in the ass.

Alucardx23 · Dec 18, 2020

OCD Guy said:
I'm a fan of Stadia, and been there since day one as a founder. I've tried all the cloud gaming platforms aside from Luna and Stadia is the best in terms of usability.

However my concern is the games, the 400 games in development doesn't really excite me if they're similar to what we've received so far. They announced over 100 games in 2020 and they delivered the numbers, but the quality? For me it's all a bit depressing. The 3 recent games announced really sums up the average type of game we're getting. A 10 year old tombraider game and 4 year old indie game and some game I've never even heard of!

It's mainly indie and old AAA games. I mean. if you remove Ubisoft games from the service there's not much great there at all. Red Dead 2 is the best game on there for me.

Even the free pro games, I've claimed every single one, and I can count on one hand how many I actually like.

I get publishers aren't keen to invest when the return on investment is likely low, but man I hope Stadia starts getting some decent games. Browsing the stadia catalogue kinda reminds me of Switch eShop minus the decent exclusives. With all that shovelware.

They need some good exclusives, not Gylt, Crayta etc. What doesn't help is the people on the "official" stadia reddit. They literally get hyped about any old shit, people need to start speaking up, otherwise Stadia is going to end up being a glorified playstore with similar games.

Right now Stadia is the absolute best game streaming service in terms of how easy it is to use. The image quality is the best with the 4k streaming and input lag is really low. But does it have the best game streaming catalogue? Not at all.

Geforce Now is a pain in the ass to use, and has queues even for founders. The game library is similar to stadia in that it has numbers but not much quality, all the good games were removed.

Xcloud and PS Now have terrible image quality and input lag etc But if Microsoft release that TV stick and increase the resolution with Series X blades Stadia is going to have a hard time, as the game catalgoue on Xcloud is far better in my opinion, as is the PS Now one.

I mean Sony aren't even pushing game streaming, but can you imagine if they wanted to and had all their games on it and increased the resolution to 4k with hdr? Damn it would be game over for me.

While I've rambled on, my point is that Stadia is the winner in terms of technology. and it ain't even close, but man it needs to hurry and get the games library to par. Amazon will have the same issues, any. games their studios have developed have been trash. When cloud gaming really picks up steam and has 50 different offerings, people will go to the ones with the best content....

Sure, I can agree with that. Not necessarily exclusives, but most new AAA, AA and popular indie 3rd party games should be there. It would seem that the number of people that use Stadia is growing and Google seems to be making some deals to incentivize developers to release their games on the service. Taking that into account, I'm pretty sure the second year of Stadia should be a lot better than the first, on regards to the game library.

Not everybody is the same and I can surely understand how someone that had not played a game like Hitman 2, Sekiro or STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order, would have been excited when they came out on Stadia. You need to take into account that a lot of the people on the Stadia Reddit have the profile of people that used to play games but stopped, and are now playing games again due to how easy and relatively cheap it is to do so on Stadia. If you haven't played these games, why you should be any less excited if they are released on the platform you are using? I definitely understand that if those are games you have already played, that is old news for you, new and current games are equally important because of that.

By next year I expect some major overhauls from Sony on PS Now. We already know that Microsoft will be updating the Xcloud hardware to Series X and will allow you to buy individual games at some point. Sony will have to start improving their service in order to stay competitive. I'm looking forward to how all these companies will fight it out with each other. Competition is good and I'm pretty sure Google payed close attention to the 7.5 billion Microsoft payed for Bethesda and realized that is the kind of money you need to invest in order to be competitive. At some point we will also see the first real examples of cloud native games on Stadia and personally that is the thing that has me more excited about this service. That will surely be another turning point on how people perceive cloud gaming.

Deleted member 86891 · Dec 18, 2020

tatalini said:
You don't need the Stadia subscription to purchase and play games, the subscription just unlocks 4k streams.

my mistake!

kambaybolongo · Dec 18, 2020

YeahJeets said:
does that controller feel as cheap as it looks?

i could never get past that

The triggers are awful and it does feel cheap but it's not completely terrible

Stuggernaut · Dec 18, 2020

That guy in the vid REALLY wants cross platform'ish stuff. He also seemed sort of unprepared for this (Maybe that is how he always is??), but glad to see people TRYING to report on stuff :)

Kareha · Dec 18, 2020

DiipuSurotu said:
Lol I thought data caps were only a thing for mobile phones

My mobile data is unlimited in the UK with my current mobile plan.

WhtR88t · Dec 18, 2020

I played around with it after receiving my free kit from my YouTube Premium subscription… I'm fairly impressed. The tech definitely works in my situation, feels pretty seamless and I couldn't notice any lag really (I'm no professional, but things like Celest were completely playable).

The biggest hurdle I have is investing in a library on a Google Service… privacy concerns and they tend to kill products a lot and I don't want to loose my game library when they decide Stadia isn't working out for them.

Dylan · Dec 18, 2020

The "worst" part of Stadia for me is that it really makes the frustrating parts of PC gaming stand out.

After using Stadia for nearly a year as my primary platform, I was able to get my hands on a really good PC for cheap. But taking the time to update the BIOS, drivers, install steam, install games, monitor system temperatures, fiddle with graphics settings etc., these all used to be somewhat enjoyable parts of the hobby, but now it just feels like a huge waste of time.

The click-to-play aspect of Stadia makes way more of a difference than I originally thought it would. Going back to local hardware is pretty rough in comparison.

Dylan · Dec 18, 2020

I_love_potatoes said:
Yeah, I don't see ISPs offering a free pass on the data caps for Stadia usage unless Google pays up somehow.

It's not totally out of the ordinary, I recall at one point having a deal where Spotify wouldn't' count towards my phone's data plan for example. Interestingly there was some legal problem with the deal and the cell provider had to just upgrade everyones plan with a bunch of free gigs. Not sure what the legal issue was; it was in Quebec so who knows.

Jonnax · Dec 18, 2020

Stadia isn't bad if you have good internet

I compared Hitman 2 running in BC on my PS5 to it on Stadia
Pretty much equivalent.
Responsiveness was good and it was smooth.

Whilst I'm just using the trial and won't continue.

I know it's not for me.
Someone that has a console and PC.

But if you were someone without that.
The idea of just buying the game and streaming it.
That sounds very appealing.
Consoles are expensive this reduces the barrier for entry.

Of course it'll only work well if you're near a datacentre.

And if you have good internet

And that's where it gets complicated.
Because it's not bandwidth. It's the requirement of consistent latency.

Consumer broadband lines have contention.
You share your pipe to your exchange with multiple homes.

Some ISPs have terrible ratios like 64 homes to a single 1gbps.

And they will oversell the capacity because most people won't use it at the same time.

But if it's 7pm on a friday night, you might find that the experience could be horrible.

What can you do except wait for another time.

The Past, Present and Future of Google Stadia with John Justice

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