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Google Stadia roadmap... of death?

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
S79pKEb.png

This thread was made for journalistic reasons and pinpoint the controversial news that made this situation for Google Stadia.

Since the announcement, Stadia was really poorly received, and as much the company said to get things better for the service, the Stadia team never really showed real effort for it.

It worked for three years and two months on total. No real numbers on money, but it's estimated something like two million user accounts - for little comparison, the Sega Saturn (which is considered a flop) sold more than nine million.
1 - Let's bring up a big party!
03, march, 2019
Stadia is revealed at the Game Developers Conference that year. It promisses gaming on Chromecast, smartphones and Chrome browser, and as a syncronized plataform with instant access.

Their server hardware promisses more than 10 teraflops to handle games, so AAA games should be fine.

2 - How works for the consumer
06, june, 2019
A direct-type video of Google is introduced to show how Stadia will work. We know how much internet speed needs to play in 4K 60fps, a Pro version that costs US$9,90 a month, the Founder's Limited(?) Edition - which comes with a Chromecast Ultra, a Stadia controller, a free budypass for three months, also Stadia Pro for three months, Destiny 2 for free, a "Stadia name", and the Stadia Base, the free version of the system that will "launch later and you can purchase the same games and play whatever you want". It's also revealed that will launch sometime later the year.

3 - Not the same, but costs the same
27/28, june, 2019
In a interview with Eurogamer, Phill Harrison is asked with pricing for games on Stadia in front of competition of other consoles. "I don't know why it would be cheaper". [...]"The value you get from the game on Stadia means you can play it on any screen in your life - TV, PC, laptop, tablet, phone," he said. "I think that is going to be valuable to players." Still, no real costs confirmation, just indication.

4 - Close to launch, far from good
13, november, 2019
Official launch date of Stadia is revealed to be november 19, and at first was going to be launched with just 12 games, but later Google expanded to 22 games, costing something close to US$60 to some titles. The problem is that some features promised before, like the buddy system, won't be available at launch.
Read more at ARS T

5 - Launch date, right? Right?!
19/20, november, 2019
Stadia is launched and it has mixed results by people.

Washington Post showed like a second of delay, also a lot of other journalistic people claimed frame drops and bad play, even thou they use connections more than 30mb of speed, which Google said that could play 4K 60fps. IGN and some others said that playing with Chromecast, the Stadia controller and a nice connection do fine, but in the browser and a keyboard doesn't work.

Smartphones are a hit and miss, but one big part of the problem is that the app is exclusive for Pixel phones.

6 - This party kinda blows
21, november, 2019
Couple days after launch and we see Stadia's numbers... 175.000 downloads with his app.

Also, marketing turned out to be false. Some games doesn't go 4K and Chromecast Ultra users claimed that their units are getting overheat while using Stadia.
7 - Kicking even if it is on the ground
December 2019 to january 2020
Darksiders Genesis was announced on PC for US$25 at pre-order on Steam, and US$30 on GOG. Stadia costs US$40. No further explanations.

Also, some people claims that games still are not running great even with a nice connection. Borderlands 3 is launched on Stadia, but gets an older version in comparison with other platforms. And Destiny 2 has just a few more than 8.000 players, which in a month before was something in 20.000s.

8 - itsfine.jpeg
February, 2020
With more than a month with no new games on Stadia, people started asking why this is happening and what's up with Google. Developers says that there's no incentive from the company to do it. Google turns the app available for more smartphones, like Samsung and Asus.

9 - A fist full of Stadias
6, march, 2020
If you have or just bought an Chromecast Ultra, and lives in the Stadia available countries, chances are that you got an e-mail from Google saying that you got three free months of Stadia Pro. Some Twitter users liked(?).

10 - For a few Stadias more
8, april, 2020
Google releases a note that the free Base version is available, and is giving two months of Pro for free for those who sign up.

UPDATE: 23, april, 2020
Couple weeks later with the free version, Stadia gets more than one million users. Also, the app for smartphones surpasses 225 thousand downloads.

11 - Google Direct
24, april, 2020
Stadia's official Twitter account says that 4/28 will be doing a Nintendo Direct-kind of thing with new announcements. Some followers asks when Stadia will go to more lands, and the official account answer basically the same to all: "we don't know. Stay tunned".

UPDATE: 27/28, april, 2020
PUBG is launched on it, and to ensure that you gonna deal with Stadia's playerbase, chances are that you will fight with a lot of dumb bots.

Stadia Connect comes aaaaaaaand nine hours later has just a few more than 50k views in the official YouTube channel. To put in comparison, an accolades commercial of Final Fantasy VII Remake was launched kinda at the same time and hits almost the same number of views.

12 - Seriously?
20, may, 2020
Serious Sam 4 is a kinda timed exclusive on Stadia, launching in august.



13 - Another kid on the block, but not really new
29, may, 2020
Steam announces a partnership with Nvidia for Geforce Now, the Cloud system of the company, which will be called Steam Cloud and is in beta. You can buy your game on Steam, keep on your personal computer, and/or subscribe the Cloud thing and play on a Cloud PC with your purchased games and your saves.

14 - Same old story
18, june, 2020
IGN's Ryan McCaffrey do a [remote] interview with Stadia's Jack Buser, Ubisoft's Marc-Alexis Côté, and Robot Entertainment's Jerome Jones.

Personal opinion: the thing looks a marketing stunt. McCaffrey is a guy who understand how the industry works and he act like he never heard it before. It's weird as fuck.

15 - Let them fight
24, september, 2020
Amazon announces Luna, a thing that is one step closer to a Netflix for gaming.

You pay a monthly fee, but the big difference is that you pay for "channels", which the original package comes with some games like Resident Evil 7 and Control, and you can also buy a monthly fee for another channel, for example, a Ubisoft channel, and you can play stuff like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell, or a Square Enix channel and you play Final Fantasy and stuff. Works with any controller that your device accepts, still Amazon launched his own that has 30 ms tops of delay and costs US$49,99.

In theory is a direct competitor to Stadia. Let's see in practice.

16 - Home Alone
30, september, 2020
Google launches a new Chromecast... with no support for Stadia.

17 - I'll buy at a high price
22, october, 2020
Gamers condemn a Google Stadia Montreal Creative Director for saying streamers should be paying publishers.



18 - more is better?
26, november, 2020
Around 400 games are in development for Google Stadia, according to Stadia’s director of games, Jack Buser.

19 - Live goes off
03, december, 2020
Stadia makes a Hangout with the GameSpot guys... it has less than 500 people watching live.

20 - Get punk'd
09, december, 2020
Cyberpunk 2077 is launched on Stadia... and it's surprisingly smooth. We don't have sales numbers for the platform yet.

21 - Two hits, one hand
01, february, 2021
Google shuts down internal Stadia game studio, and with this news, Stadia Games and Entertainment vice president Jade Raymond is leaving Google.

22 - I'm going if you're going
05, may, 2021
A host of Stadia developers have left Google to join Jade Raymond at Haven Studios (some PS5 game).


23 - You can't see the light
01, february, 2022
Dying Light was listed to Stadia to pre-order, but since you could buy it, it's not listed anymore.

24 - Arriba, muchachos
30, june, 2022
Stadia is coming to Mexico, making 23 countries in total. Score!(?)

25 - It's not true. I did not hit her. I did not
1, August, 2022
Late july, a suspended account Twitter user said that Google was going to kill Stadia in a not far future. People claimed that this was not possible (at least for now) because the service was going to be launched soon in Mexico, so didn't make any sense. Google said "rest assured" that it's not dead.

26 - Party like a Stadia-star
8, september, 2022
Stadia unveiled a new feature called Party Stream that makes it all too easy to share your gameplay with friends. Where previously you would need to start a YouTube livestream and send the link to your friends, now you can simply enable Party Stream to allow anyone in your Stadia party to tune in.

27 - The party is officially over
29, september, 2022
Google is shutting down Stadia. The service will remain live for players until January 18th, 2023.
 
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10000

Banned
this product is certainly not ready for 2019-2020 launch, also they have to pump moar money so devs would supports them like what 360 era microsoft and epic games did, plus first party titles
 

hyperbertha

Member
Google could have offered so much to the industry. I was actually rather excited to think they were about to enter. But they were arrogant enough to try and shift the industry to force their own monopoly, so getting shafted is exactly what they needed.
 

wipeout364

Member
This should have been launched as a subscription only service, 10 to 15 dollars a month with 25 to 50 games. They could have rotated games in and out and you could buy them at a discount to maintain access similar to gamepass if you wanted. Their messaging and payment model were/are a disaster.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
In before the class action lawsuit to get Google to cough back the money people paid for games that they can no longer use because the service is shut down.
 

pr0cs

Member
I like gamepass streaming so I'm not against the idea of cloud gaming. Google as usual half assed the whole thing, the notion that I'm expected to buy software on there is simply mental. If Xbox did the same, or for the official launch doesn't attach xcloud streaming to gamepass it too deserves to die.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
The experience was more impressive and playble than I expected, but the time for it is 5-10 years from now the earliest. And even then, you need to live close to a cluster. I did like the feeling of gaming on a tap.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
I like gamepass streaming so I'm not against the idea of cloud gaming. Google as usual half assed the whole thing, the notion that I'm expected to buy software on there is simply mental. If Xbox did the same, or for the official launch doesn't attach xcloud streaming to gamepass it too deserves to die.
I imagine both well end up with the same model. When xCloud fully launches is imagine you will be able to buy games that aren't in gamepass. Likewise when Stadia's library is big enough, Is imagine they offer a gamepass style offering alongside the ability to buy games permanently.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Time will tell if Google cares about Stadia, SONY and Microsoft both have streaming services who see the potential in it.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Im just dumbfounded that a company like google could make such a mess of things.

I dont know if its there arrogance or ignorance.

Its not rocket science on how to succeed in the game platform business, it just takes massive upfront investment these days.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
The calm before the storm
Yeah, I wouldn’t count them out yet.
I don’t want them to succeed in principle either, but Google is going to play this like Microsoft did and sink billions before throwing the towel.
 
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darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Who was that guy who thought Stadia was the next coming? I imagine he's feeling a little foolish.
It's foolish to assume that streaming is not going to replace traditional gaming eventually. Of course it's not going to happen over night. Same way that it took digital distribution ten years to get from 0 % to 55 % market share.

This is actually perfect for people to realize that you do not own digitally bought games

They don't own physically bought games either. They own the medium it is stored on. Not the game. That is the same license as when you buy digitally.
 
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It's foolish to assume that streaming is not going to replace traditional gaming eventually.
It's foolish to assume anything. Thankfully, I didn't. I DID, however, mock the guy who was flat out shilling for Stadia, and making absurd claims that haven't eventuated at all.

And you can sell physical games you don't want. You can't sell digital games. So knock it off.
 
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Crew 511A

Member
I don't get why and how Google fails so hard in such an important and huge and connected market where they could control like everything including the narrative.

Hubris, basically. Google is big and powerful, just like Microsoft was when they released the Xbox. Microsoft gave us a reason to give them a go, Google really hasn't. No attempting to lure third party developers with incentives, and a lot of consumers are neutral or negative to Google based on politics or how they run You Tube. I understand corporations aren't saints, but Google is the furthest thing from saintly.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
It should be intersting to see if google is in for the long haul or will just shut it down. It does have long term potential, but seems to be struggling badly right now.
 

Cock of War

Member
Strreaming games just seems to me like an incredible waste of bandwith. I shudder to think the amount of data my several 100's of hours in a game like Diablo 3 would add up to if I was streaming.

You could argue that bandwith will increase over time, but then the one time download of the game would also be faster.

I think it might succeed as an option when you happen to be away from your pc/console for a time, not as a defacto standard.
 
Stadia should just focus on crossplay titles. There isnt enough games.

All this hate would be fixed if they released with a “beta” label.
 

CrysisFreak

Banned
When I was young I played the Crash Bandicoot on my PS1 on a CRT, all instant no bullshit now it's 2020 Google gives me this shit you what mate?
Keep your STDia for yourselves tbh
 
Lmao, with real next gen coming, nobody's going to even remember this in a few months. But go on Google, keep beating that very dead horse.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
So PUBG is free this month along with a single DLC shirt? And there are like a few dozen extra cosmetic DLCs in the store. And I'm supposed to be excited for this? Wow.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
So PUBG is free this month along with a single DLC shirt? And there are like a few dozen extra cosmetic DLCs in the store. And I'm supposed to be excited for this? Wow.
Don't forget that is hard to find another player in the game. It's basically all bots
 
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