stadia has managed to be completely irrelevant in the current generation, it'll be even more of a non-factor once next gen consoles are out.
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Will Stadia weather the storm of the new generation?
- Thread starter pswii60
- Start date
Whatever the case may be, they certainly wasted whatever lead they had in terms of novelty. The tech is where it needs to be, or at least as good as you can expect, and I'm sure Google isn't gonna give up on it anytime soon, but I don't see how the people who are directly responsible for its current image can be expected to improve that image.
Saw a commercial for it yesterday and went "oh, yeah, that happened".
They'll also compare $0 hardware to $299/$499 hardware ontop of that subscription.
I think it was initially explained well, but as other mentioned there was a lot of resistance to Stadia specifically for some reason. Making a thread here was almost impossible as it would be derailed by the third post, pretty embarrassing stuff.
Ultimately it was on Google to get the word out and change the perception as the actually product works amazingly (Division 2 for example played thought my browser or on my 4K TV destroys my Ps4 Pro version in every regard).
I think the team responsible for this is very small and Google didn't want to spend the money to secure more mainstream popular titles day One. The big names they did have like Avengers there was almost no awareness that it is even on Stadia.
I don't see it shutting down anytime soon, but if they are serious they need to pivot and go out of their way to generate hype and show the advantages of the platform, but now with xCloud out and to be updated in 2021where the feature set will be more similar with a huge library advantage it will be a more difficult task.
Their window was November 2019 to about a month ago to have really made a name for themselves, which they obviously failed to do.
The thing is that the game subscription services are a by-product of ecosystems that already have a large library of games. Sony and Microsoft can run subscription services with hundreds of games available because those hundreds of games were already PlayStation and Xbox games with an existing business reason for being on those platforms as standalone games. Sony and Microsoft just had to convince publishers to push the button that makes them available as part of the subscription. That option doesn't exist for a new platform where each game has to be ported - the major publishers aren't likely to fund ports that end up as one game in a large subscription service, they'll all want any port to a new platform to focus on getting as many standalone sales as possible.
If Stadia persists for long enough, the games library will grow large enough and mature enough that a subscription service will be pretty much inevitable, but it has to survive without one until then.
This doesn't negate the post that you're responding to though. That poster said they did not see room for Google. It's totally possible for it to be true that Stadia is technically miles ahead of PS Now and Xcloud, and also true that there is no room for Google.
Well, whether they have a subscription service depends on what you meant. Stadia Pro subscribers accumulate games each month in pretty much exactly the same way that PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold subscribers do. So if you think PlayStation Plus is a games subscription business model, then yeah, Stadia has that (and has had it since the start). If you were talking more about PS Now, or Game Pass, or "Netflix for games", then no, Stadia doesn't have that.
Yep. For a lot of publishers/developers it's probably quite close to the point where porting to Stadia isn't worth it unless it's free or very close to it.
They go away.
That's the default answer anyway. Potentially Google could give people lots of notice, try to arrange some kind of proportionate refund, or maybe provide unlimited access to the Stadia library for previous subscribers for some months as a compensatory exercise, or perhaps try to arrange with publishers to migrate Stadia purchases to Steam (either for free or at some kind of discounted rate) or something like that. There's potentially several ways that a closing service might try to provide some kind of value back to customers, but it's all speculative and the base answer is that the lowest-effort shutdown of the service would mean any purchases vanished into non-existence.
I disagree that Stadia has a 'Window'. People who are deep into the hobby like to think along absolute terms like that because its a compelling narrative, but the reality is, if Google can keep the service going, keep reminding people its out there, free, and has a load other benefits, people can dip in and out of it as much as they want.
If someone buys a XsX or PS5, they aren't suddenly barred from trying Stadia. It can exist as another platform for anyone with decent internet.
Of course, getting people to think in those terms seems to be hard. That's gamers for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It won't survive. I bet the high up execs at Google are ready to kill it now looking at what I'm sure are embarrassing player counts and game sales. The only reason they haven't offed it yet is there is too much investment into the platform (tech, studios, etc). They'll just ride out Stadia for a couple years and quietly shut it down.
I just meant to have the "space to themselves" to get a larger userbase, which is still problematic.
I still really like Stadia and still would not purchase Avengers due to their being no cross save and almost certain to have MP issues down the line
I think it'll either pivot to a subscription service, focus its marketing to regions where it is more viable, or shut down all together.
Cloud gaming isn't anywhere close to being ready and more importantly people don't want to buy games they don't own just to play them in a worse way. Onlive tried this and ended up shutting down and being bought by Sony, but apparently Google didn't learn from Onlive's failure.
Cloud gaming isn't anywhere close to being ready and more importantly people don't want to buy games they don't own just to play them in a worse way. Onlive tried this and ended up shutting down and being bought by Sony, but apparently Google didn't learn from Onlive's failure.
Yeah, and they find that the 299 or 499 option is better because they will save more money in the log run thanks to services like Game Pass. By the way, you need a controller to play Stadia so it's not $0.
Cloud gaming in general will continue to grow and Xcloud should be a good boost to change the wrong perceptions people have about cloud gaming. In my mind Xcloud works as a trojan horse for Stadia. In the sense that people will be more willing to give it a chance and understand the benefits. If Stadia continues to evolve as a platform and takes advantage of the benefits that come from being a fully dedicated cloud gaming service, it should benefit from the base Xcloud will create of cloud gaming supporters. When I say advantages from being cloud only, it means creating games that are made to take advantage of the extra power that servers can provide (See Gamebus, Gamebus 2), Microsoft has already said that they wont create Xcloud exclusive games and that is a limitation. Another advantage that fully dedicated cloud gaming services have is that they can upgrade the hardware faster than consoles, so I will not be surprised if during this next generation Stadia announced better hardware than the next gen consoles and in addition to that gets to put that hardware to work together.
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Yea I get that, I've just seen similar lines being parroted so often.......
Hopefully it didn't seem like I was trying to have a go at you or anything.
I tend to see Stadia as having many similarities to Chromebooks, at least in terms of perception and (hopefully) eventual trajectory.
Chromebooks were absolutely shat on for years and years when they first came out, but generally speaking, people that had them and knew what they did, absolutely loved them. They were niche for a long time, but Google stuck with them and they eventually found their sizeable niche in education.
Windows 10 didnt kill them, the newest MacBook didnt kill them, they just kept on going, and got better and better.
I think the purchasing model of Stadia was a deliberate ploy by the people running it to make sure Google couldn't just kill it like they do their free apps.
By having a 'buy once, play forever' model, it forces Google to keep Stadia running or endure a massive PR shitshow.
Google are decent at supporting the stuff you actually have to pay for, so I dont expect Stadia to get shut down anytime soon, no matter how small its player base is.
It might well get re-branded, re-launched, re-invented, re-whatever, but outright killed? I'm doubtful.
They wouldn't be building new studios around the world if they were only toying with this, they'd simply throw money at short term Epic-style taking the market by the neck tactics. It's a long term plan.
Yep, and it's not just new hardware, it's the whole deal top to bottom.
I think it'll be around for a bit. Didn't Google spend a bit of money creating/purchasing studios and poaching existing talent (i.e. Jade Raymond and Shannon Studstill)? I'm interested to see what the output will be from all that.
EDIT: If anyone remembers OnLive they were around for 5 years. Stadia isn't even a year old yet.
EDIT: If anyone remembers OnLive they were around for 5 years. Stadia isn't even a year old yet.
Stadia's dead already.
Google will continue to allow it to exist for a couple more years so that they can say they tried, and then they'll kill it officially.
Google will continue to allow it to exist for a couple more years so that they can say they tried, and then they'll kill it officially.
Universal gamestreaming for the masses in the States is not going to be a thing until ISP have better coverage for high speed, no data caps, better availability, and better affordability. Plus cell phone providers would need to be willing to allow unlimited, unthrottled data if streaming on phones was gonna be taken super seriously...
I don't think most people want that from a gaming platform that's advertising itself as a console replacement. I think most people want a Netflix style sub where they get everything in the platform's catalog.
I agree, there seems to be an arbitrary deadline some people have in their mind, where if Stadia is not more popular than consoles by the end of this year, it will die in a few months. Stadia will launch on more regions and the library of games and features will continue to improve over time. That is the important factor here. Compared to how the service was at launch, a lot more features have been added since then and this trend should continue going forward. This should directly relate to the amount of people that find the service good enough. The biggest problem Google has to solve with Stadia is the library of games. Most people that try the service on supported regions report having a good experience, but there needs to be more options to play.
No, this is too hard to understand for gamers that think that a product will be dead within the year if it is not catered towards them. The amount of people you see proudly proclaiming they just know Stadia will be dead within the year when in reality no matter what Stadia does would ever get them to try it. Given the level of investment thus far (lol) and the seemingly super small team, I think Google will try to carve out a small segment of the market where they capture (lapsed) customers who feel like playing a single game here and there and that's about it. The Stadia subreddit already seems to be way more casual than what you would expect from a gaming platform - and that's still Reddit. Gifting subscriptions with every Chromebook is already a start. They can run the service for as long as the Google cloud infrastructure exists - it costs them next to nothing. Don't think it will ever be a huge success but it's here to stay.
Right, Stadia had a soft launch last year, but their real launch was in April this year IIRC. Hasn't even been half a year.
Right now, it's a hybrid between PS+ & GamePass since you keep the games but the games stick around for new members to claim for months. I think it'll be closer to a proper GamePass competitor in a year or two as they keep adding new games to the list.
EDIT: Here are the current free games that Stadia Pro members can activate right now (7 of them are from this month).
- Crayta
- Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
- SteamWorld Dig
- West of Loathing
- Destiny 2
- Gylt
- PUBG
- Steamworld Heist
- SteamWorld Dig 2
- SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamesh
- The Turing Test
- Little Nightmares
- Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
- SUPERHOT
- Panzer Dragoon Remake
- Orcs Must Die 3
- Metro 2033 Redux
- Just Shapes & Beats
- Strange Brigade
- Rock of Ages 3: Make and Break
- Super Bomberman R Online
- Gunsport
- Hitman: Complete First Season
- Hello Neighbor
- Metro Last Light Redux
- Embr
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The Stadia was a huge flop because google wanted people to pay $60 for games we would only have access via streaming. I don't think this has anything to do with a new company in the market.
Xcloud would probably flop hard without game pass, in the same way imo.
It has already failed in tempting many people to jump ship and has become somewhat of a living meme for the enthusiasts of other platforms. Videogame ecosystems in particular seem to have significant levels of brand loyalty:
-Xbox, on its worst moment, still managed to sell some 50 million consoles, retained a massive portion of their core users, and is arguably looking stronger than ever. The xCloud / GamePass combo could be gigantic.
-PlayStation is revered worldwide and won´t be abandoned so easily, moreso when it´s crucial for the survival and sucess of Sony as a whole.
-PC gaming is thriving, with the recent example of the Ampere cards unleashing a massive phenomenom.
-Nintendo... well, still is something very unique.
That said, I wouldn´t ever count Google out. They have been the most important company for the last two decades; they soundly defeated the once unstoppable Microsoft several times. They have a terrifyingly vast ecosystem. Has Stadia started with the right foot? No. But I wouldn´t bet on its death, yet.
-Xbox, on its worst moment, still managed to sell some 50 million consoles, retained a massive portion of their core users, and is arguably looking stronger than ever. The xCloud / GamePass combo could be gigantic.
-PlayStation is revered worldwide and won´t be abandoned so easily, moreso when it´s crucial for the survival and sucess of Sony as a whole.
-PC gaming is thriving, with the recent example of the Ampere cards unleashing a massive phenomenom.
-Nintendo... well, still is something very unique.
That said, I wouldn´t ever count Google out. They have been the most important company for the last two decades; they soundly defeated the once unstoppable Microsoft several times. They have a terrifyingly vast ecosystem. Has Stadia started with the right foot? No. But I wouldn´t bet on its death, yet.
I don't think that it's it.
I can fully play all my purchased games in 1080p via my TV, phone, PC, Chromebook...
Once my PSN expires this month all of my multiplayer games become useless
Google failed to highlight the advantages proudly
I remain bullish about Stadia for a few reasons:
- The technology is rock solid and proves that high quality, high def, high framerate video games can be streamed over a reasonable modern net connection. That's not going away, that's not tech that will suddenly become irrelevant. If you can accurately reproduce a high def AAA videogame at 60fps over a stream, then there's basically nothing you can't do with a streamed service like that. So, if anything, the worst case scenario is that perhaps Google pivots Stadia resources towards a more general streaming service for all kinds of computing needs, not just videogames.
- Developers who have built/ported their games for Stadia generally respond very positive about the experience and in fact laud aspects of the dev environment like the ability to access new builds instantly from anywhere as a major boon for QA/QC, esp. in these times of pandemic lockdown and distancing.
- They have significant investment in first party development and which they've just continued to build out over the past year. That hasn't born fruit yet and they obviously had to have factored that in.
- The games are coming more steadily now. They still haven't achieved "parity" or 1st class citizen status with the game industry royalty yet but they are increasingly plugging the gaps.
- The technology is rock solid and proves that high quality, high def, high framerate video games can be streamed over a reasonable modern net connection. That's not going away, that's not tech that will suddenly become irrelevant. If you can accurately reproduce a high def AAA videogame at 60fps over a stream, then there's basically nothing you can't do with a streamed service like that. So, if anything, the worst case scenario is that perhaps Google pivots Stadia resources towards a more general streaming service for all kinds of computing needs, not just videogames.
- Developers who have built/ported their games for Stadia generally respond very positive about the experience and in fact laud aspects of the dev environment like the ability to access new builds instantly from anywhere as a major boon for QA/QC, esp. in these times of pandemic lockdown and distancing.
- They have significant investment in first party development and which they've just continued to build out over the past year. That hasn't born fruit yet and they obviously had to have factored that in.
- The games are coming more steadily now. They still haven't achieved "parity" or 1st class citizen status with the game industry royalty yet but they are increasingly plugging the gaps.
IMO Xbox cloud streaming completely eats Stadia's lunch. Nobody wants to pay full $60 price for a game for ONLY the license to stream it.
From what I'm seeing online, Xbox at its worst moment only sold about 26 million copies total worldwide (the original Xbox system, aka when they were trying to break into the industry).
So they were trying to do something like Game Pass after all, didn't know that. Most people also don't i'll assume.
Btw, can i subscribe to Stadia Pro only for a month to play some of these games? Looks like a good deal actually.
Atleast i would never purchase a single player game that i can't have access if internet is off.
I don't think i would purchase multiplayer only games in console either tho, as i only play online on pc.
Yep, you can actually subscribe and get a free trial for a month and cancel before they start charging you for the next.
Yes. You only have access to them while the subscription lasts though. If you end your subscription and decide to resubscribe later, you do regain all previous subscription games you had redeemed along with your save data.
This is great, thanks.
I think Stadia isn't available in my region and my internet sucks anyway, but good news nonetheless. Will try it if i have the means to.
Fair enough. Thanks.
I didn't even considered this was a thing. But i also kinda forgot Stadia existed until i got into this thread.
I remember wondering if Google wouldn't market the hell out of Stadia using its influence and all its sites, but in the end they did the opposite haha.
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I have been in since launch and it has become my favorite platform for playing games. The library is certainly wanting, but the tech is incredible and it's a much more convenient and flexible way for me to play than a traditional console. I don't have to worry about system updates, game updates, game installs, etc. Google is playing the long game here and anyone who thinks they are going to shut it down in the next year or two is out of their mind. I don't know why the users of this site are so aggressively down on it and myopic about its potential. People seem genuinely excited about xCloud, which obviously has a much better library, but clearly inferior tech. The library will get there and I'm happy to continue paying my ten bucks a month for it.
I thought it was kind of funny recently all the Stadia ads I've been seeing on YouTube recently while watching videos for upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series S stuff... but not when I watch other kinds of videos on YouTube.
And every time I'm like "Oh Google... no. No. Stop trying to make Stadia happen."
And every time I'm like "Oh Google... no. No. Stop trying to make Stadia happen."