At the Game Developers Conference 2019 Google announced the Stadia. Not much is currently known about the Stadia but I like to pretend I’m a journalist some times so lets put on our journalism pants both legs at once and dive in.
So what is Stadia?
To put it simply Google Stadia is a new gaming platform. Unlike other gaming platforms though Stadia has no physical form. It’s a cloud based streaming service that allows you to stream games to your PC, phone, and even TV. There is a controller that connects to your device of choice via WiFi but the controller isn’t required.
So it’s just ANOTHER store front like Steam and Epic?
Yes and no. For store fronts like Steam, GOG, Itch, and Epic, the developer creates the game and puts it on the store and some people might have difficulty playing it depending on their computer set up. Stadia being a cloud platform, the games would be developed and put on the Stadia servers so as long as you have stable internet you’d be able to stream the game at the highest setting with (Google is hoping) very little input lag.
So why should I, the consumer, be excited?
As of now, I don’t see much for the end user to get excited about. As mentioned Stadia was introduced at a conference for game developers so most of the presentation was aimed at them.
Because this is a Google platform they showed off some YouTube integration. They showed the ability to use Stadia to play games with someone live streaming on YouTube and I can see that possibly getting live streamers to push the platform. I could see a streamer playing a fighting game and they say “buy this game using this link and join the queue so we can play” and the link is an affiliate link so they get some money whenever someone buys it using the link.
For right now Stadia has a lot of potential but nothing substantial enough to get excited over. It’s going to be released in 2019 and I’m hoping that it works out and doesn’t get dropped like Google Glass.
https://store.google.com/magazine/stadia
