Google Stadia Livestream

This is a false dilemma, because Google isn't asking people to choose between the way they play and purchase games now and their streaming service -- its not Stadia-or-nothing. They're only providing one more way to play games.

I have quite a few friends that come over and marvel at the kind of graphics that a multi-thousand-dollar gaming PC can produce, but they aren't so into games that they'd drop the same money as me, and so they tolerate a console. Stadia is perfect for them.

Bottom line, streaming services like this drop the barrier to entry for high end PC graphics without having to settle for watered down console graphics or invest a ton upfront.


This is false, as they offer stadia more to developers - and aim specifically at ubisoft.
 
This is a false dilemma, because Google isn't asking people to choose between the way they play and purchase games now and their streaming service -- its not Stadia-or-nothing. They're only providing one more way to play games.

I have quite a few friends that come over and marvel at the kind of graphics that a multi-thousand-dollar gaming PC can produce, but they aren't so into games that they'd drop the same money as me, and so they tolerate a console. Stadia is perfect for them.

Bottom line, streaming services like this drop the barrier to entry for high end PC graphics without having to settle for watered down console graphics or invest a ton upfront.

I see your point, I did say potential. Google has bought off or killed hundreds of companies. Maybe you've heard about a company called EA and how they've influenced gaming. I prefer to give my money to the small company or family business that endeavors to put out something original or of high quality.
 
This will be awesome for gamers on a budget, or without much space. Subscribe to the service or get it as a gift and you can game on your tv, or older laptop and get top of the line performance as long as your connection is good. I see zero issue with this.
 
You have to buy individual games on top of paying to stream them ($10/month).

IMO, the entire success of streaming (music and video) is based on paying to stream from the digital buffet. All you can consume and sample.

Imagine how many people would be streaming music if you had to buy each song you listened to individually: IMO nobody.

As is, I think this is DOA, and when Google pulls the plug, you lose the games you paid for.
Wait what? Whats the point then? Not building a gaming PC? I thought this thing was a buffet streaming service. I have to already own games???
 
I need to see this thing in action and see their pricing model in detail before I can give an opinion on it.
I've seen plenty of now-standard tech items take off that people swore would never work.
The thing that makes me most nervous about this is that Google is behind it. They have a habit of killing off product lines really quickly...and historically they've been things I've liked.
 
Seems bitchen but running 100's of gpu's sucking down MW of juice for a few players doesn't seem economically feasible.

Its made possible by resource pooling. Its not like 1 person is going to have 100 cards running just for them for hours of game play. The server GPU farms share ram first. So instead of loading 20GB of textures for me and another 20GB for you... they load 20GB and we both read out of the same pool. Same thing happens with the GPUs in the blade. They load balance across the blade and save power.

The next few years for Google will be refining their software to better balance the loads.... finding math they can cache much like a shader cache. Imagine the shade cache we all sort of understand our PCs do, and think of something like that on a larger scale.
 
Assuming it is even actually possible to utilize all of that hardware at once to do that stuff it's going to be years until it there are any games doing it. They should be partnering with Epic to get it working with Unreal Engine. Or at least have some proof of concept examples.

At this point it sounds more like the marketing bs you hear about consoles before they launch that never ends up happening.

From a few months back...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...-to-overcome-ids-stadia-streaming-skepticism/

"Land also teased that id was busy working on ways to differentiate the Stadia version of Doom Eternal in ways that aren't possible on other platforms. "That is all I'm allowed to say on the subject" for the time being, he added. "
 
I need to see this thing in action and see their pricing model in detail before I can give an opinion on it.
I've seen plenty of now-standard tech items take off that people swore would never work.
The thing that makes me most nervous about this is that Google is behind it. They have a habit of killing off product lines really quickly...and historically they've been things I've liked.
https://killedbygoogle.com/
 
I'm going to give the founder's edition a try because that's how I roll with new tech.
 
Honestly this was awesome last year with AC:Odyssey playing it looking pretty awesome on a tablet.
 
So it seems we can figure out how much GeforceNow will cost, at least its free for now. ;);)

After a couple of years using the shield TV on geforcenow, I think it has become a great complement for my gaming PC, but no way I wouldn't go solo on it.

Stadia looks pretty much the same, I could care less about the social and all the extra google stuff. Not really impressed at all. At least GeforceNow includes 50+ games + many games on your steam library (that stepped down from pretty much all the steam library, but still...) + most blizzard titles + some uplay titles and a few Epic games.
 
I echo some of the concerns of others here. Tthe idea of having to pay for every single game I think is a major disappointment. If figured if anyone could throw around their money and tech to start a "Netflix/Spotify" style "buffet" of gaming, it would be Google (or possibly Amazon but one step at a time). Playing for free/without a subscription means being limited to 1080p/60fps stereo, and the $10 monthly subscription grants you up to 4K + 5.1 audio + HDR, tosses an occasional free game, and gives you discounts on games your purchase?

Even with Stadia Pro, it really just seems like another proprietary console now given you';ll have to specifically buy games for Stadia. There isn't (so far) any discussion of being able to use Stadia with games you all ready own, nor is there any "pay monthly, get to play all we offer" included in the subscription! I can't see the allure of this if it requires buying your content on annother platform yet again, developers have yet another incompatible storefront/platform to support etc. Google is betting that we have enough people with broadband to make this viable, which may very well be true (I know I'm personally an outlier with gigabit FIOS, but 35meg isn't too difficult to find in many places), but if that's the case...what about competition?

Given what we know Stadia's big feature is the portability, that all the actual computation is happening on their hardware and it is being streamed to you. What about others who can compete in this sphere? I see it going two directions. One, there will be "virtual hardware rentals", where users can rent a virtual PC somewhere where they can install/setup all their existing games, and then streams the gaming to wherever they wish. There are quite a few "cloud gaming" services all ready like this and/or have some sort of subscription service Two, players who own their own hardware, will have the tech to allow them to easily utilize their own hardware from anywhere - Parsec and Steam Link have gone a long way this direction all ready! I see this is a place that Steam could really leverage and carve out some market space, by offering an open source easily available tech for low latency streaming from users existing hardware, and perhaps even leveraging their massive infrastructure in order to sell "cloud" gaming PC access.

All of this seems superior to what Stadia is currently offering. Now don't get me wrong, Google COULD do some good in this arena if they made some changes. For instance, Stadia I hear is based on Linux and using AMD hardware primarily, so that will make it easier and better to justify Linux support...provided Google doesn't make Stadia some sort of proprietary console like nonsense protocols that doesn't port well. Likewise if they start open sourcing their tech and make a way to use your existing games and merge platforms with Stadia in an interoperable way.... but I am not holding my breath.

Oh and last - Anyone find it a little wonky they went with the symmetrical joystick design on the gamepad? Even "elite" gamepads for PS4 often have the Xbox-style asymmetrical thumbstick arrangement. That said, a little more data on the gamepad would be nice. They're supposedly $70 each (judging by the a la carte purchase they suggest), so I'd really like to know a few things. Do they have and "paddles" or special features on the inside? Do they use Bluetooth? Internal rechargeable batter? Full XInput compatibility? How are they for playing local content etc.
 
There isn't (so far) any discussion of being able to use Stadia with games you all ready own...

I suspect that you have to re-buy your games, otherwise people could just invoke their Steam Library, and where does Google get it/s cut.
 
They're supposedly $70 each (judging by the a la carte purchase they suggest), so I'd really like to know a few things. Do they have and "paddles" or special features on the inside? Do they use Bluetooth? Internal rechargeable batter? Full XInput compatibility? How are they for playing local content etc.

  • Wi-Fi: Dual-band (2.4GHz / 5GHz) IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac connectivity
  • Bluetooth: Bluetooth Low Energy 4.2 (BLE)
  • Headset jack: 3.5mm headset jack for headsets with or without a microphone
  • USB: USB-C port for charging, wired gameplay, and accessories such as USB-C headsets. HID-compliant
  • Weight: 268g
  • Dimensions: 163mm x 105mm x 65mm
  • Google Assistant: Google Assistant button to trigger the microphone
  • Capture button: Quick access to image and video capture
  • Battery: Internal rechargeable Li-Ion battery
 
I wonder if they're going to support the free version by spamming ads in the middle of the gameplay (like they do with youtube, etc.) lol.

I tried out project stream and I still have my Geforce Now beta access, for what it is... Game streaming is convenient and definitely playable.
Ugh ten bucks. YouTube with no commercials is what 12-13 bucks. If this is any indication of what free is hell no! I don’t,as much as possible, nothing google
 
BTW AMD is using a Radeon VII equivalent (probably Radeon Instinct), that doesn't bode too well for running games at 4k60. At least nvidia is using Tesla P40 which is a little faster than a GTX1080Ti.
 
Input lag makes me hesitate on any game streaming service. I'm pretty sensitive to it, so it doesn't take much for me to notice. I even notice it a little bit on my Steam Link, and that's on a local wired connection. I don't know how they can solve it either since it's a matter of physics. About the only thing they can do to mitigate it as much as possible is going to be having servers in basically every major city, so most players can connect to something fairly close.
 
Apparently playing games a 4K60 for 65 hours will use up over a Terabyte of data.
Once ISPs start charging per MB, streaming services like this will die. Quickly. Give it time, it's coming.
 
Once ISPs start charging per MB, streaming services like this will die. Quickly. Give it time, it's coming.

No, well, more the MSO's will run them, particularly with 5G , SP are looking to monetize these things themselves. They got killed with 4g as the netflixes and the googles of the world were making money off their investments. Same with cable and DOCSIS 3.1 + RPHY.

At the SCTE conference last year Gaming was a HUGE part of people talking about how to Monetize these things for the SP.
 
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I'm going to give the founder's edition a try because that's how I roll with new tech.
I didn't like the sound of $129 initially because I already have a Shield TV and don't care about Chromecast Ultra, but on second look pricing isn't that bad:

Chromecast Ultra is $59 on the Play Store right now (down from $69) -- can just sell it.

3 months paid tier subscription is worth $30.

Even if you give a value of $0 to the buddy pass, you're paying the remaining $40 for a controller, and a copy of Destiny 2 + all content including Year 3. For comparison, Xbox One controller is around $41 on Amazon.

And the 10 dollars a month is low if you compare it with a $400 dollar console + gold/ps+ and even a few games, nevermind cost of a gaming PC powerful enough to never drop below 60FPS at 4K.
 
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The tech looks good and Google could make this amazing with their ecosystem. Though I’m worried Google isn’t putting a lot of effort into this. Was really hoping for a subscription plan to include some games in it, not charge me $10/month so I can buy games at retail prices and play them from someone else’s PC. Take a look at PS Now, they have a shit ton of games available and it’s all included in one monthly fee...

Anyway, they can’t even label the damn axises on the controller measurements correctly either:

A40E83D1-55DE-414D-A2B2-61A22F5EA0F8.png
 
The tech looks good and Google could make this amazing with their ecosystem. Though I’m worried Google isn’t putting a lot of effort into this. Was really hoping for a subscription plan to include some games in it, not charge me $10/month so I can buy games at retail prices and play them from someone else’s PC. Take a look at PS Now, they have a shit ton of games available and it’s all included in one monthly fee...
Yeah but you need a console for PS Now. Unless I'm just out the loop and you can subscribe and use with only a web browser.

I see the $10/month as substituting the upfront cost of a console or gaming PC. And one doesn't need the paid version unless you have to have 4K60. The free version does 1080p and if you're playing on a phone or web browser it prob won't matter to a lot of people.

I suspect they'll aggressively add more free games to the $10/month tier if they don't see enough interest initially.
 
Yeah but you need a console for PS Now. Unless I'm just out the loop and you can subscribe and use with only a web browser.

I see the $10/month as substituting the upfront cost of a console or gaming PC. And one doesn't need the paid version unless you have to have 4K60. The free version does 1080p and if you're playing on a phone or web browser it prob won't matter to a lot of people.

I suspect they'll aggressively add more free games to the $10/month tier if they don't see enough interest initially.

Or they’ll cancel this like a hot potato...

I’m interested enough to try it for $130 :)
 
IDK why people are so negative. I get fast enough internet on my phone data plan to run Stadia. If I can play Baldurs Gate 3, Destiny 2, or Assasins Creed games at 1080p with one of those bluetooth phone controllers... it might be okay as a mobile experience.

Will it replace my desktop? No way. But as a portable experience it might have some promise if it runs as well as or better than the AC:O trial they did a while back. I'll happily use my Pixel 3a backup phone as a portable gaming device that gets way better graphics than something like a Switch.

Edit: Yes im aware that my carrier throttles after 50gb/month but the way I view it is that streaming a 1080p 60 game is really no different than the Twitch 1080p 60 content I consume in short bits. This would likely replace that.
 
I suspect that you have to re-buy your games, otherwise people could just invoke their Steam Library, and where does Google get it/s cut.

They could still do quite well, if their previous experience is any guide. They could sell hardware (ie like the Stadia controllers / kits with Stadia friendly hardware ), have multiple subscriptions (One for 4K/HDR/5.1 high quality features + No ads + bonuses, another for full access to their gaming catalog itself etc) providing repeat funding, and this is to say nothing for the profit they can make on mining data and selling advertising which Google offers many of its services from the start for "free", so it isn't like that path isn't viable for them or they don't have experience.

If they want to offer another "option" for gaming to make it more accessible, that's great. However, I do think they should have an "all access, premium netflix/spotify-like" subscription option and the ability for users to play games they all ready own somehow, without having to purchase them again specifically on Stadia. Otherwise, its not so much another complimentary option, but instead another proprietary, incompatible platform "console" - that just happens to have its hardware, games and more sitting in Google HQ instead of your home.
 
I haven't watched the livestream but I am interested in trying the service. I played about 10 hours of AC:Odyssey on my shitty 5 year old laptop while traveling and it ran surprisingly great.
 
BTW AMD is using a Radeon VII equivalent (probably Radeon Instinct), that doesn't bode too well for running games at 4k60. At least nvidia is using Tesla P40 which is a little faster than a GTX1080Ti.

It may not be one gpu to one user/instance/VM. They could be pooling resources. That being said, the quality of GeForce Now was indeed better than project stream when I tried it.
 
They could still do quite well, if their previous experience is any guide. They could sell hardware (ie like the Stadia controllers / kits with Stadia friendly hardware ), have multiple subscriptions (One for 4K/HDR/5.1 high quality features + No ads + bonuses, another for full access to their gaming catalog itself etc) providing repeat funding, and this is to say nothing for the profit they can make on mining data and selling advertising which Google offers many of its services from the start for "free", so it isn't like that path isn't viable for them or they don't have experience.

If they want to offer another "option" for gaming to make it more accessible, that's great. However, I do think they should have an "all access, premium netflix/spotify-like" subscription option and the ability for users to play games they all ready own somehow, without having to purchase them again specifically on Stadia. Otherwise, its not so much another complimentary option, but instead another proprietary, incompatible platform "console" - that just happens to have its hardware, games and more sitting in Google HQ instead of your home.

There is also the factor of needing the games to be ported to Stadia. That work isn't free either. I am pretty certain this will be a re-buy situation for games you currently own. Some devs in the future may sell you a license that includes stadia, but for games you currently own, I would count on needing to buy the games again.
 
"however, when developers realise the potential of the experiences that could be built on Stadia those creative juices start flowing... the possibilities are endless. I've seen stuff that literally would be impossible on a PC or a console. Literally would be impossible. " Jack Buser, google games director.

ID has basically said Doom Eternal is going to have Eye candy on stadia that is impossible on home hardware. (not possible with 10k in gear... impossible) Expect to see ray tracing and all sorts of crazy insane high rez texture stuff. Google is pooling GPU resources... cards like 2080ti can't compete with the potential of having 30 or 40GB of textures loaded and being shared by 100 instances of a game, and ray tracing being done by a server using 100s of GPUs and also potentially pooling math results. Googles task for the next few years will be optimising their servers so they can spin up 100s of instances of high IQ games featuring tracing and all manner of crazy effects so they can use as few GPUs in the actual blades as possible. Exciting if they stick to it.

I am excited to see what developers do with ZERO hardware constraints. Forget development targets of PS4 and Xbone... with up converts for PC. The main advantage of cloud gaming is removing all those low ball targets. Your game doesn't have to run on a 4 year old laptop anymore so you can hit sales targets. Under stadia you target server GPU farm level render resources.. and the people with 4 year old laptops are still your market.

Developers are going to eat this up.... if you love FPS I feel for you. But no more with the FPS genre be where you look for the highest level eye candy games. Developers are going to start turning out some insane looking stream only games in the next few years, and sure they will be in genres where no one will really notice or care about a few ms of extra lag.

I love eye candy like the next guy but not looking forward to the latency & 60hz (most likely) rendering. Not sure I could stand it...
 
This is a false dilemma, because Google isn't asking people to choose between the way they play and purchase games now and their streaming service -- its not Stadia-or-nothing. They're only providing one more way to play games.

I have quite a few friends that come over and marvel at the kind of graphics that a multi-thousand-dollar gaming PC can produce, but they aren't so into games that they'd drop the same money as me, and so they tolerate a console. Stadia is perfect for them.

Bottom line, streaming services like this drop the barrier to entry for high end PC graphics without having to settle for watered down console graphics or invest a ton upfront.

Interesting, because I bet you said the exact opposite when Microsoft introduced the Windows Store, amirite? ;) :D
 
Oh look at that, Google using car dealer tactic to rip people off.
"It's only $10/month for all that".
But then you're locked to them and left at their mercy :)

Besides, 4k/60hz? That's so 2016.
 
Oh look at that, Google using car dealer tactic to rip people off.
"It's only $10/month for all that".
But then you're locked to them and left at their mercy :)

Besides, 4k/60hz? That's so 2016.

All that what?

You really don't get much of anything for $10/month except you can stream the games, AFTER you buy them (probably for full price).
 
All that what?

You really don't get much of anything for $10/month except you can stream the games, AFTER you buy them (probably for full price).
Uh you don't need an expensive gaming rig?

You're basically renting an expensive gaming rig.
 
It may not be one gpu to one user/instance/VM. They could be pooling resources. That being said, the quality of GeForce Now was indeed better than project stream when I tried it.
I think I heard during the first announcement that each user would get its own VM with dedicated GPU.
 
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