ArsTechnica: Google Stadia launch review: Gaming’s “future” looks rough in the present

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First Reviews are coming out and they aren't pretty:
Google Stadia launch review: Gaming’s “future” looks rough in the present

The Good
  • Over a wired Ethernet connection, streaming feels a lot like local play.
  • Stadia controller is solid and well-built.
  • 4K streams on Chromecast look very sharp under ideal Internet conditions.
  • Starting games without the need for a download is pretty neat.
The Bad
  • Wi-Fi performance can be extremely inconsistent
  • Chrome browser streams are limited to 1080p (for now) and look worse than similar resolution running locally.
  • A vast array of missing and "coming soon" features.
  • Up front/monthly costs don't provide much savings over a console (which can do in-home streaming).
The Ugly
  • The prospect of paying full price for games that only last as long as Google supports the service.
Verdict: Early adopters feel like they're getting a beta product here. Wait until next year to see if Google can work out the kinks and prove the service's longevity.

The Verge disagrees on 4K quality. Indicating that both 1080p and 4K are much worse than native. You will pretty much have to pay 4K service to get 1080p native Quality:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/18...aming-cloud-price-specs-features-chrome-pixel
Did you notice that I wrote “4K” and “1080p” in scare quotes earlier? For days, I’ve been trying and failing to get Google to admit that its servers aren’t actually rendering intensive games at what I would consider 4K.

With Destiny 2, it’s even more obvious that the game isn’t running at the highest settings. On a Chromecast Ultra, a “4K” stream looked closer to 1080p, and my colleague Tom Warren and I swore that the 1080p streams we were getting in the Chrome web browser looked more like 720p.

Initially, Google told us that it was using the highest-resolution, highest-fidelity build of Destiny 2 available. But Bungie later confirmed that our eyes weren’t deceiving us. “When streaming at 4K, we render at a native 1080p and then upsample and apply a variety of techniques to increase the overall quality of effect,” a Bungie rep said, adding that D2 runs at the PC equivalent of medium settings. That explains why the Xbox One X build, which runs at a native 4K and with higher-res assets, looks so much better than Stadia.
 
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Somehow I expect this whole thing to go the way of lots of other Google services..... aka to the trash bin.

Maybe they'll fix it up enough to prove me wrong.... but I dunno….
 
Pretty much confirms this isn't for folks with slower connections. If Google is serious about pushing Stadia, they might need to rethink their Google Fiber plans.
 
Have a post pointing to Digital Foundry. Confirmed that even with the dedicated hardware that the "4K" premiere service is rendering Destiny 2 at 1080p and RDR2 at 1440p and upscaling it. Makes sense as there was no way a Vega 56 was going to run some of these games, especially RDR2, at 60 FPS rendering at 4K. RDR2, in fact, is running at 30 FPS.

https://hardforum.com/threads/google-stadia.1988894/
 
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And what did they say that "Stadia could do what PCs can't"?
It's near perfect DRM. Users cannot pirate it, and it's non-intrusive (since we seem to have a lot of renewed game client hate, as of late - good thing, too. Steam had gotten too many people to accept their shackles with glee, so much to the point of fanboying for a DRM host).
 
While I'm no fan of the concept of streaming gameplay, I can see it has its place and a large userbase waiting to throw money at a well-implemented service. I have no doubt the quality will improve as Google dedicates more of its unlimited funds to resources and infrastructure. It couldn't possibly get worse than it is now.
 
It's near perfect DRM. Users cannot pirate it, and it's non-intrusive

And you don’t even have an install that you can try and crack if the service drops the game that you paid full price to buy.

This kind of service is the wet dream of big money, sell you something you don’t even have a copy of, sell you the service to play it, and no one can access it outside the walled garden.
 
And what did they say that "Stadia could do what PCs can't"?
It's true if you take "graphics" out of the equation, at least for now... almost no install time or complex setup is another big thing it does that PCs can't...

some reviewers are impressed, but yea it's a long ways for anything mainstream, almost nobody argues otherwise

 
Ever tried out Google+?

Ever tried out Youtube?

upload_2019-11-19_11-16-44.png
 
They wouldn't interrupt game play for ads, that would be suicide for the project. But injecting them in the UI or inventory of whatever game, easily done and 'non interfering'. Pretty sure any game like COD where you are waiting for the match to start, could easily cover the lobby with ads. Click here to have a pizza delivered in the next 20mins. Or start a game "would you like to order delivery before you start a match?"
 
GN review. They start with burns right off the top:

... it's not a new idea but Google's execution of this old idea proves that it's possible to fail in even more spectacular ways than previously thought


Google's old motto used to be don't be evil but to be fair to Google they never had any rules about not being incompetent

 
Oh man. Imagine playing some twitch game on the final boss and you've timed it just right so the cooldown triggers right when you....... <AD PLAYS> .... died. lol

It's more likely that they would put the ads right before the boss fight like a cutscene so if you died you'd have to watch them again each time before you could try again.
 
I still want to try it myself (my pre-order should be coming in a week). So I will reserve final judgement until I see with my own eyes.

However, I don't understand how they didn't playtest on average internet connections or have some sort of working proof of concept before getting this far into a launch.
 
I still want to try it myself (my pre-order should be coming in a week). So I will reserve final judgement until I see with my own eyes.

However, I don't understand how they didn't playtest on average internet connections or have some sort of working proof of concept before getting this far into a launch.

Hopefully you actually get your email with your code and you have a Pixel phone to activate it with.
 
Hopefully you actually get your email with your code and you have a Pixel phone to activate it with.
Pretty insane that you need a Pixel phone to activate the service. I don’t know how they could have borked this launch any worse than they did.
 
You can activate it via a Chrome browser as well.

Gamers Nexus (Video Above) could not, and they aren't the only ones. In fact they weren't able to activate it all, even after getting a Pixel phone.

There are reviewers that got it working, but they got special kits from Google. GN bought theirs like a normal consumer and it was a complete shit show, and that is reflected in online forums as well.
 
Gamers Nexus (Video Above) could not, and they aren't the only ones. In fact they weren't able to activate it all, even after getting a Pixel phone.

There are reviewers that got it working, but they got special kits from Google. GN bought theirs like a normal consumer and it was a complete shit show, and that is reflected in online forums as well.
Yeah ... this is the worst launch I've seen from anyone in recent memory.
 
You can activate it via a Chrome browser as well.

Nope. Every single article talking about Stadia activation says it requires the phone app. It is supposed to work on "some" non-Pixel devices but the sheer fact that it doesn't work on something as popular as the S10 casts that into doubt. Google is incredibly vague about non-Pixel support as well with their own Stadia FAQ simply say that it will work on iOS 11+ and Android M+ devices that support the app without even bothering to say which ones support the app.
 
Google is incredibly vague about non-Pixel support

Was anyone reporting this before the actual release? I swear I don't remember hearing this until Tech Jesus mentioned it, and, since I've already got a perfectly good phone there's no way I'd buy a Pixel just to be able to use this stupid "service".
 
In the tested video interview it seemed clear to me they plan to support non-pixels soon but they aren't starting off supporting everything
 
Was anyone reporting this before the actual release? I swear I don't remember hearing this until Tech Jesus mentioned it, and, since I've already got a perfectly good phone there's no way I'd buy a Pixel just to be able to use this stupid "service".

About needing a phone to activate? Kind of. Google was incredibly vague on how anything worked with Stadia. I think a phone requirement for some stuff was known, but not just how much could only be done with the phone app.

In the tested video interview it seemed clear to me they plan to support non-pixels soon but they aren't starting off supporting everything

Next year for playback. The Stadia FAQ non-Pixel devices can manage settings, purchases (because you HAVE to use a phone to buy games you can't even do that on the browser), and other things but only Pixel devices can actually use Stadia to stream. At least that is the claim. To make this more clear: Of the three ways to play Stadia games, mobile, browser, and Chromecast a full 2/3rds of them are severely limited in some way until some vague point next year when Google get's off its ass and supports them. You can't even use Google's own Chrome OS for streaming until next year.
 
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