We’ve mentioned this a few times now… well here it is! High quality gaming in the browser on very low end PCs!
Nice to see Drab & LiveView setting new trends 
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There’s been a few similar services in the past (Steam Link now works outside your house now too for a ‘self-hosted’ version!), Google’s big thing is the computing power at the nodes and the controller that is handling the connection I think. ^.^
Now if only gamepads didn’t hurt my hands like crazy… They need keyboards/mice instead, controllers are painfully sucky…
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I think you can play with whatever e. G. other gamepads and probably keyboard everything else would be really bad for PC gaming.
I also remember the other companies… One was in like 2011 iirc high costs and latency drove them away. We’ll see.
As it is built on Linux I’m interested to see what this will mean for Linux gaming.
Also what their pricing will be like. Everyone expects a subscription model I doubt they can make it profitable with the normal 10$/month. Unless they manage to leverage allthat sweet sweet data which is an entirely different concern.
Also catalogue is a good question.
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Sony has had the same tech and a product that has been launched for ~5 years. It will be interesting to see what Google does for the games catalog / exclusives since I don’t not recall any recent game studio acquisitions announcements.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it will be a variation of the mobile model:
I can’t figure out why but for some reason those controllers make me think: Ouya - probably has more to do with targeting low end PCs.
Typically PC gaming always targeted high-end PCs because (obviously) the owners had money to burn.
Targeting low end PCs means that reach is far more important which makes me think this is trying to expand the “casual market” from mobile to the browser (though frankly I was under the impression that the “casual” market was trending away from PC).
You don’t have to buy a game studio, they announced in that same announcement they are creating their own game studio.
iirc (I haven’t watched the talk yet just secondary sources 
) they want to have it on all kinds of devices, including Android. So it wouldn’t just be PC but android phones, TVS, maybe even chrome cast? 
I think you can consider me a non casual when it comes to gaming, I usually have a good piece of hardware around capable of playing all the most recent games. But, time is sparse and I really just like to try out a game and see what kind of concepts they implemented, hence often not even finishing games. As such, a Netflix like gaming service would be super interesting to me. I mean, I’m already paying 12$/month for humble monthly - if the catalogue and lag is okay I guess I wouldn’t have a problem paying that or more for the service.
I’ve had no idea, will check it out… doubtful it’s going to work great if it’s got glitches streaming downstairs over Ethernet…
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In case you’re looking for it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/3362406825533023360/
Yeah I’m also not sure. My Steam Link worked good most times via ethernet over power, just that I had to power cycle the adapters every couple of days (otherwise there’d be random 20s video lags) - “thanks” to my Switch I haven’t tried it in my new pure ethernet setup too much yet.
I kinda expect the google product to work better though: https://twitter.com/postgoodism/status/1108100262575497216
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It’s the ultimate DRM. With Steam, you barely own the games but with Stadia, you own nothing. I don’t think it will go for $10/months but way more. So after a year, you probably spent a whole lot of money and might not even own your safegame file.
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Depending on pricing model it could be a great way to try a load of games and then buy the ones you really like. The vast majority of the games I own have ~5 hours use and then sit on a shelf, it’s a real waste of time and money.
I agree with you on that usecase. And it also works fine for games that have all state bound to a game account and not a local file. But it all depends on the pricing.
The impact of 5G networks will be important also on this. The problem with streamed gaming is the latency. If I remember correctly also sony tried something like this with Playstation now (I think this service is still available).
Google also announced they are going to move to AMD GPUs (AMD stocks +12% just yesterday).
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I just remembered what that other service/first service I ever saw this was called: On Live. Went live in 2010 in the states, initially for 15$. Went defunct/laid everyone off a little than 2 years later. Bought, relaunched 2 years later. Defunct and shut down for good a year later. Playstation Now runs a lot of the technology now it seems (Sony bought it).
I remember talking to one of the engineers at an event ~2013 and they said it could never work. I mean this is Google we’re talking about now. If they put data centres close (similar as with MMORPGs) they might do it.
I’d be happy to try it. Even better if there was a client for the Switch.
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Knowing Google, they will likely ditch it 1-2 years from now. 
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I’ve not tried it remotely yet but it was in the latest beta update. 
I have steam link on the other side of my house, using wifi because no ethernet through concrete walls, but I’ve not had any streaming issues with it.
I’ve no doubt Google’s to work better ‘overall’ though.
However, I’m not a fan of Google’s because I tend to not play games unless they are moddable, modding often ends up more fun than playing the game itself (not in factorio’s case, modding it to play it is sooooo addictive…), so I don’t see Google’s service being interesting for me due to lack of modding. It’s the same reason I abhor consoles.
I’m not really a fan of playing a game for a few hours and moving on either, I like to fully engross in it, mod it, spend months on it at the very least (multiple years on factorio now… >.>), so that’s another reason it seems suited for the ADHD lifestyle nowadays, which I don’t really fit in to (my wife though)… ^.^;
I saw that! Oh I was jealous… ^.^;
Remember, for Stadia Google is putting dedicated game hosting servers in their nodes all over the globe, so latency should be exceptionally minimal compared to about any other service out.
.>
*cough*wave*cough*inbox*cough*reader**etc*cough*etc*
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I like the idea as it has the potential to reduce overall bandwidth usage of games.
e.g. I’m currently downloading Elder Scrolls Online (free week on Steam).
It’s a 79 GB download (which is going to take days on our connection).
Streaming would allow people to start playing these games a lot earlier.
But my 6.5 Mb/s “broadband” connection doesn’t even come close to the 25 Mb/s Stadia requires for 1080p, 60 fps gaming (30 Mb/s for 4K) that I’ve seen posted. Probably the reason why Australia isn’t on the list of countries in the initial roll-out.
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