Google Stadia is About to Unleash a Wave of Terrible Game Consoles

Google's Stadia will bring 4K HDR gaming to any device that can run Google Chrome and output video at that quality. That could be awesome for gamers, but others will take notice. The ease of building a Stadia compatible device will open the floodgates for terrible cloud gaming consoles.

[gamer7804]

cloud is not ready to be a primary means of consumption, xcloud and psnow have the right idea, use it to complement the primary local version.

[UltraNova]

I'm telling you man, Stadia will fail hard. Its one thing to have your local hardware and cloud service as an option and another to depend entirely on the internet for the other. Internet infrastructure is not ready for that.

[Cmv38]

Sad part, I don't think it will fail. Akin to the mobile market....it will succeed amongst those so called gamers. Casual...ir something below what we consider casual. Mobile games, all you need is a phone. Streaming games, all you need is internet. Smh. Going to be toxic.

[Fluttershy77]

I'm telling you man, I'm in for Stadia

[fiveby9]

Fail is ambiguous. I doubt Google will make money for years from Stadia. I am guessing Google is will to take losses for some time to get a foothold in the market. Will the service thrive? Perhaps with the candy crush crowd and other such consumers but likely not with the existing traditional gamer market. I have no interest in owning or using Stadia myself. I can easily see a future where Google will insert advertisements in their games. I won't be spending my money on their offering.

[steven83r]

isn't that what the Xbox Digital is all about? Isn't it true that you cannot watch Netflix or enjoy any online activities without paid subscription to Live? And with more gamers only wanting Royale games and FPS multi, gaming is already "online" only.

[bouzebbal]

Cmv people are playing on social media and crap.. Hardcore gamers have a console or a pc to game. Stadia will be for the curious, cause it's clearly not gonna work for everyone. Also, games announced aren't amazing...gonna be tough for them.

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

Of course..and I'm sitting back like Mr.Burns, fingers clasped and all. Waiting...

[Retroman]

Google has Not learned crap from Onlive and Ouya
But it will.......... Very soon.

[madpuppy]

It needs to die, This is all kinds of bad. Google is the real version of the Buy n' Large corporation from the movie "Wall-e" They are the kind of company that Dystopian Scifi movies are based on.

Personally, I don't want to live on "Planet Google"®

[Vandamme21]

It’s gonna flop will hard. It doesn’t even have, it’s own exclusive. What makes Sony, Microsoft and nitendo a success in the gaming industry. Is that they all have there own exclusive titles.

[Thundercat77]

Sony and Nintendo are a success in the market with their exclusives but we cannot say the same for Xbox which is last pla e om the market. I wouldn't call that successful.

[opc]

xbox is profitable for microsoft though. that's a success. You don't have to be the best to be profitable to the tune of millions

[lazyboyblue]

I'd love to know the strength of pre orders so far on that founders edition nonsense.

[mijayire]

I remember the wave of crappy android consoles. Cant believe people paid for that crap Ouya.

[steven83r]

It will not be easy to build a Stadia compatible device unless Google Allows it. That would take some hacking to run off Googles servers with your home made kit.

[steven83r]

Most are missing the point of Stadia. It isn't to drop your Xbox or PS4. To me it's about not having to buy a game for both platforms to just play with friends who do not wish to own both consoles. This way, If it's true what google says, you will be able to cross play with both consoles and only need to buy 1 copy of the game for your desired platform. That's a win if true and why i am getting Stadia.

[SamPao]

yeah no way its gonna be what you would like it to be :)

[steven83r]

That's what Google said it would do when first announced. Not what i think it will do.

[JokerBoy422]

Then I hope you live in an city with Google Fiber. All tests shown with Stadia running well were in cities that have Google Fiber and you can bet anything that Google was using their fastest speeds possible to show off their system. Current streaming in 1080p on Netflix (or just any streaming in general really) is a real issue for most communities because of internet infrastructure. 4K streaming isn't even possible for the majority of the planet. Stadia will be dead on arrival not due to it being a bad system and idea, but because the technology doesnt yet exist to support it outside of a small handful of cities with super fast Google Fiber.

[steven83r]

Google isn't saying that everyone will stream in 4k. Most people don't even have a proper 4k tv or monitor. Streaming on Stadia @ 1080p should be fine if frame rate is high. 1440p would be nice as well.

[chrisoadamson]

I have Vodafone 1000mb internet and get speeds of over 1000 sometimes and I live in Ireland. A tiny country in Europe. Broadband speeds are better than you think . Having said that I wouldnt buy a stadia.

[S2Killinit]

Not interested

[deathtok]

As a lifelong gamer, it’s concerning that I feel nothing when I hear about Stadia. Google has a lot of marketing to do. This release could be DOA.

[opc]

Too many people here are viewing games as the end goal for this project. I'd put money on it that Google's end goal for this was to just develop better compression and delivery methods... and they realized that it worked well for games.

They already host cloud services and run streaming services that likely utilize the compression techniques used for Stadia. They might not need massive sales to see a profit. Hell, they might already be profiting from some of R&D done on this project.

[Germaximus]

LOL @ people saying it's going to flop. No, it won't.

[SamPao]

I dunno about you but, google is known for failed products, which is fine, but to think this is not gonna fail is the same as it is gonna fail. Wait and see

[opc]

They're known for allowing their developers to work on projects with 20% of their time and then taking features from those projects and rolling them into their flagship applications.

[SamPao]

well, tons of their flagship applications joined the internet grave. So its okay to fail. Just saying Google is not without its fails, and stadia can be one of them. Also I dont really like google to be in the gaming space, really dont see how they would add value here

[SephirothX21]

5g will be rolled out over the next few years and this will lower latency to 20ms. 70ms is all required for no noticable input lag in fighting and shooter games. Therefore a lot more people will have access to Stadia in the coming years. The question is can Google do streaming better than the competition. If they can, then it's game on

[Cobra951]

That's way unrealistic. For games, latency goes both ways. Control inputs to server, AV stream sent back to you. No way is that going to be so responsive.

[lazyboyblue]

I was watching some YouTube gameplay yesterday, on a fibre connection, and the video buffered for seconds before dropping to 360p. It's looks pixalated as heck and I thought, "Do I really want my games to be like this?"

[opc]

Was everything up to date. There are people that pay for 500Mbps and use an old modem or router that can't support 500mbps...

[lazyboyblue]

Yeah was the bt modem that comes with it. And I have the Wi-Fi shields. Trouble is, there are 5 of is hitting it. Kids on Netflix or YouTube too.
But Google can't expect me to tell everyone not to use the internet when im on Stadia.I know what they tell me if I did.

[opc]

heads up, Google actually can help you.

Get their wifi router. Aside from it looking nice and updating automatically, you can go into the app and give priority to any device for a set amount of time.

So if you're videos are buffering because your kids are watching TV, you can just bump yourself up

[Bleucrunch]

smh, I am not with the Stadia stuff because I believe they are introducing a cancer into the world of video games that will do more harm than good. To say I want Stadia to fail is a bit much, but I probably won't respect it like I do PC and gaming consoles though.

The internet here in the US is no where near ready for such traffic....no thanks.

[opc]

PS Now streams games, is that a cancer on the gaming world?

[lazyboyblue]

Yes. Yes it is. But playing devils advocate, they arent exclusively pushing a cloud only service. There is after all, a ps4 and soon a ps5 too.

[Bleucrunch]

@opc, NO it is not I REPEAT PS NOW is not. If you are going to respond to my post with a nonsensical response like that Please consider staying out of grown folks conversation, your red herrings are not appreciated. Your post comes across as trolling, but allow me to edify you a bit.

Stadia is a means to force gamers into a subscription based model similar to that of Netflix and Hulu and others.

The problem with that is the same problem with the aforementioned services, NO CHOICE as that has been removed. You have no say in what movies are available to you and you are at the mercy of the aforementioned. Movies and shows are added and removed at a moments notice and without informing the customer as well.

Is it your position that you would subscribe to a video game service that would do the same thing?

I said it before and I will say it again, so long as cloud gaming is NOT the only option for gamers then I have no issues with it, however with Stadia, they trying to make that the norm, which is where the cancer part comes into play. SONY, with PSNOW is CERTAINLY NOT doing that, but of course you potentially think otherwise....that is unfortunate.

[opc]

I don't understand why you think google is trying to make streaming the norm. Why would Valve, Epic, GOG or Sony or EA or Nintendo change the way they do things. Even MS is still going to make the xbox. Most of these companies are simply unable to do streaming without paying someone else for servers. They will always offer local options simply because that will net them the most money.

Google isn't changing the norm. they are simply offering a service that takes advantage of their strengths... data centers, compression, web optimization...

[Thundercat77]

Streaming, as a secondary complementary option to primary local option is good.

Streaming, as the sole primary option, is not.

[killswitch80]

Misguided journalism.

[opc]

I don't think many people here are thinking this through. Most of the tech and code that they set up and created for Stadia has probably already been used in their other streaming ventures. For Google, the venture might not be a big risk at all.

Once they get the store up and running selling other people's games, they might not need this to sell like hotcakes in order to profit. That's what big tech companies do, they automate things and reduce overhead costs.

On top of that, they will make millions attaching ads to the pages surrounding these games.

Look at their Google Play store for movies and TV. How often does it come up in discussion with streaming services? Never. No one thinks about Google as a movie and TV giant. Everyone focuses on Netflix, HBO, amazon, Hulu... but look at google's numbers on the play store, they make hundreds of millions if not billions selling movies, TV, music... even though they are "not winning."

[Tross]

Cool. I plan on buying none of them. I don’t even plan on buying a Stadia.