Update (07/06/19):
Yesterday saw the pre-E3 hype cycle spin its wheels at full capacity with companies like THQ Nordic and Bungie making some bold announcements ahead of the main show. We got the reveal of Darksiders Genesis â a top-down Diablo-style spinoff to the main franchise â and learned more about where Destiny 2 is headed in future. The highlight, however, was Stadia Connect, Googleâs new quickfire way of announcing games and offering further insight about its upcoming streaming platform. There was a lot to digest, so weâve rounded up all the key information.
As it stands there are two pricing structures for Google Stadia: Stadia Pro and Stadia Base. Stadia Pro, as you might imagine, is the premium option, which will be priced at $9.99/ÂŁ8.99 a month and gives you the ability to stream games at 4K/60fps/HDR with 5.1 surround sound. Stadia Pro will also grant you access to a growing library of games, similar to, say, a PS Plus or Xbox Live subscription, but it also comes with the complete Destiny 2 experience (including all content released thus far) free for a limited time.
Stadia Base differs slightly in that you arenât required to maintain a subscription, but you can still play games with a steady frame rate of 60fps. Resolution will be capped ay 1080p (720p for those with slower internet speeds) and sound quality is stereo as opposed to 5.1 surround. You donât get access to a growing library of games and instead need to buy them a la carte. Stadia Base is completely free, working much like current digital game storefronts albeit without the need of a home console. Stadia Base is expected to arrive in 2020.
If you want to be one of the first to see what Google Stadia has to offer, then the Founderâs Edition Bundle should interest you. For $129/ÂŁ119 you get a Chromecast Ultra required for playing on your TV, a limited-edition Night Blue Stadia Controller, a three-month Stadia Pro subscription, a buddy pass that lets you gift three months of Stadia Pro to a friend, and the ability to secure your preferred Stadia Name ahead of anyone else. The Founderâs Edition is available to pre-order now.
Google Stadia will roll out in a kind of staggered release, with purchasers of the Founderâs Edition gaining access to the service as early as November 2019. Everyone else, whether opting for Stadia Pro separately or Stadia Base, will need to wait a little longer until sometime in 2020. It will be launching first in the following 14 countries:
Of course, a streaming platform that lets you play games without a home console isnât very appealing unless youâve got games to play on it. Thankfully, major third-party publishers like Ubisoft, Bethesda, Capcom and more are already confirmed to bring their games to Stadia on day one. Below you can see just a handful of games that will be playable.
A huge question most people will have about Google Stadia is just how strong a connection theyâll need to enjoy a smooth play experience. This is something that will directly play into your location also, but for the time being, Google has released an estimated internet speed timeline to give you an idea of what you can expect. 10Mbps is the recommended minimum for 720p play, while those with up to 35Mbps and a Stadia Pro subscription can enjoy all the spoils of 4K and 5.1 surround sound.
Original article (10/03/19):
Last night saw Google take to the stage at this yearâs Game Developer Conference held in San Francisco, where we finally got to learn all about the tech giantâs vision for what the future of gaming could possibly be. That vision turned out to be none other than Stadia: a new online streaming platform that will allow players to experience latency-free, instantly loaded triple-A games across a plethora of devices.
According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, âthe future of gaming is not a boxâ and is instead one dependant on Googleâs cloud infrastructure set-up. Weâve seen streaming gaming platforms like this enter the fray before (OnLive and Gaika are now but a distant memory for most people), but where others have failed Stadia aims to nail the concept thanks to a greater emphasis on not just those who play games, but also those who develop games and enjoy watching games on stream, too!
As heavily implied by the streaming platformâs tagline, thereâs no hardware to speak of in terms of getting set up with Stadia. All thatâs required is a Stadia account (presumably existing Google ones will work just fine) and a controller. Google emphasised at the conference that gamepads used with current consoles such as the PS4 and Xbox One will be compatible, but not necessarily across all Stadia-ready devices. This is where the Google Stadia controller comes in â and rather than pair to whatever device youâre playing on, it will speak directly to the game running in Googleâs data centre via Wi-Fi.
As is abundantly clear, Googleâs conference revealed a lot of information within a very short space of time so thereâs a lot to wrap your head around with Stadia. However, thatâs where we at Gaming Deals have made it easier to discover what Stadia could mean for how you enjoy experiencing games by breaking it out like soâŠ
If youâre someone who enjoys simply playing games, you know as in the traditional sense like the good old days, Stadia seems like one of the first truly viable cloud gaming services. As revealed by Google during its 2019 GDC conference, Stadia removes the standard console box set-up as well as the need to buy games physically, meaning that anyone not too worried about ownership can pick up and play the latest releases without having to worry about excessive downloads.
Just like services like Netflix or Now TV, Stadia makes it possible for players to stream game directly to their preferred screen instead of having the game run on a console â itâs all done via Googleâs cloud that connects to the companyâs data centre. The result is that players will be able to watch a trailer for a game, click a âPlay Nowâ button, and then start gaming in just a matter of seconds without any native downloads.
Stadia features 10.7 GPU teraflops, which is more powerful than the PS4 and Xbox Oneâs hardware capabilities put together. Considering Stadia is a service designed by Phil Harrison, a Google VP with previous experience working at Sony and Microsoft, this shouldnât come as too much of a surprise. What this does mean for players is that triple-A games can run as smooth as 60fps without any noticeable framerate drops or latency. That is, if the on-stage demo we were given is to be believed.
Should this work as flawlessly as was shown when Stadia releases later in 2019, the benefit for gamers would be having the ability to experience the most graphically intense games without needing to have a top spec PC set-up or the most powerful games console. âStadia is built on an infrastructure no-one else has,â said Majid Baker, Googleâs head of engineering, citing how the tech companyâs 7,500 edge node locations around the world circumvents the need to run games locally.
In terms of games themselves that are actually confirmed to appear on Stadia, Assassinâs Creed Odysseyâs global test conducted last year (when Stadia was known as âProject Streamâ) seems like that a slew of Ubisoft titles seems like a safe bet. iD software also confirmed at the conference that the upcoming sequel to 2026âs Doom, Doom Eternal, will be one of the first major titles released on the platform.
Google reinforced countless times during its GDC Keynote that Stadia wasnât just about making things easier for people who like playing games, but the creators developing them as well. It was revealed that Stadia development kits had already been rolled out to over 100 developers, moments before those yet to received one are now able to reach out and apply.
Stadiaâs cloud-fuelled development opportunities was best highlighted when Tequila Worksâ Luz Sancho took to the stage, demonstrating a feature called Style Transfer ML. âStyle Transfer ML is a machine learning technology that runs on the video frame created by the game,â one Google representative highlighted. What followed was an example of what science-backed machine learning could achieve, where a grey box 3D demo changed its art style to whatever image was fed into it.
Some of the image examples included van Goghâs Starry Night, Kandinskyâs Yellow, Red, Blue and at one point even a Pac-Man grid was interpreted into the game. Considering all the announcements made around Stadia, this was arguably one of the most impressive. âWeâre doing our part to empower the artist inside every developer,â the representative continued. âWhat excites us, and some of our partners so far, is how many playable art styles we can create by feeding it more and more images.â
Much was said about how Stadia can help developers get their games in front of a wider base of players, where suddenly every tweet, WhatsApp message and YouTube ad includes a link that will allow people to have instant access to the game being shared. Stadia will seemingly be the first platform where games â triple-A, indie or otherwise â can be played within five seconds of whatever device the link is shared on.
It wasnât lost on Google just how big a movement the act of watching streamers play games has become â this is the company that owns YouTube after all. At this point in the keynote Game Theoryâs MatPat took to the stage, expressing all the ways Stadia can benefit Twitch and YouTube streamers engage with their audience.
MatPat envisioned a scenario where viewers could be in the middle of watching their favourite streamer playing a horror game (Resident Evil 2, say) then immediately pick up at the exact same point of the game themselves. The feature is whatâs known as State Share and you have to presume will give streamers a commission percentage on any games sold by viewers who opt to make a purchase.
Crowd Play was a term also thrown about a lot, and weâve seen this sort of thing previously in Telltale games, which would let viewers on a stream vote on a particular choice or decision they want the player to make. Stadia takes this idea one step further, however, by letting players queue up and actually join the session their favourite online personality is streaming.
Wondering when youâll be able to give Stadia a spin for yourself? Sadly, there were no release date specifics given at Googleâs GDC keynote other than that itâll be arriving some time in 2019.
Google is holding its cards close to its chest with regards to Stadiaâs cost. This is rather annoying given that price will likely be a âmake or breakâ moment for people who are in the process of considering whether or not theyâll jump on board. Itâs safe to assume that, as Stadia plays heavily to those welcoming the streaming revolution, there will be a subscription model of some sort. How much it will be, and what games will be included? There is still no word.
In an interview with Phil Harrison on Kotakuâs Split Screen podcast, news editor Jason Schreier addressed this issue, where the Google VP simply expressed that theyâd have more to reveal on the subject in Summer. Is it likely weâll hear more about Stadiaâs pricing model around the time of E3? We think so!
As already alluded to, Google are being very sketchy with regards to what games will be available to play when Stadia launches later in 2019. id Software has at least confirmed Doom Eternal as Stadiaâs first big triple-A game, but even then, that game is yet to announce a hard release date. Doom Eternal, however, will be a good showcase for many of Stadiaâs streaming-led features such as State Share and Crowd Play.
Another safe bet is that Ubisoft will be supporting Stadia to no end. A big clue to this was when Googleâs Phil Harrison gave a shout out to the French publisherâs CEO, Yves Guillemot, thanking him for making Assassinâs Creed Odyssey the testbed for the Stadia tech back in October of 2018. While thereâs been no official confirmation as of yet, weâd highly expect to see the new iterations of Far Cry, Assassinâs Creed and more make their way to Stadia.
Arguably the biggest question many will have when weighing up whether Stadia will be a viable way to game for them is what internet connection speed theyâll need. After all, Stadia being entirely console-free means that all the processing is done remotely in Googleâs data centre, so youâll need fast enough broadband speed to keep a steady connection.
The exact speed required wasnât mentioned in any overt manner at the conference, but some post-keynote reports have noted that Stadia will require a minimum of 25 Mbps internet speed. âTo get 1080p, 60 frames per second, requires approximately 25 megabits per second,â Phil Harrison revealed. âIn fact, we use less than that, but thatâs where we put our recommended limit at.â
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