Personally, I would only have released Stadia out into the wild until I’d have a minimum of 50 games and 50 more coming in the following four months after release date. Releasing a new game platform/service, and one so radically different, with just 16 games and only a dozen more announced for the next half a year is CRAZY, with the competition being so mature at this point.
It wouldn’t have been so crazy if they’d led with the free tier, but it’s nuts when you’re charging a subscription fee (and expecting people to buy most of the games on top of that).
stusser
1715
Right, Google launched Stadia priced like it was already a successful service intended to make a profit on day 1. That obviously didn’t work. Given that it’s Google they could have spent, I dunno, a hundred million dollars in developer incentives to port and exclusives. They could have given away a hundred thousand Stadia controllers + chromecasts. Basically, they could have bought market share like the Epic game store, but they were so confident that people would jump to pay for their service that they didn’t do that. And here we are.
I could see them still doing that, actually. I have two Google Home Minis (one is actually a Nest Mini) on the way for free because I have a Fi and Spotify subscription. I could totally see them similarly giving out Stadia setup kits (controller/chromecast and a game) sometime in the next year.
Teiman
1717
There where some bugs, but much less than the influencers where tryiing to tell people.
Has for lifeless, I strongly disagree. I had my house next a huge city, and there where often attack from “dragons”, with all the robot police fighting it, sometimes another third faction would join or forth faction. Of course I could join and try to make a profit from the result. And the whole game made sense!, you would find a sniper nest, and a physical real sniper there, nothing was just decoration, everything was a real object you can use. A hat in a house where a real hat you could pick and use. In any other game a hat in a house is only a graphic you can’t interact with.
More would’ve been better of course, but I think I would’ve focused on just one game. Something awesome that showed off the advantages of cloud gaming. Exclusive.
I say this because I think Nintendo proved with Breath of the Wild that a good launch requires a superstar. I think one great game and launch filler is better than 10 solid games to start the ball rolling.
That will be too little too late. The hype machines on the PS5 and Series X will be ramping up in the next several months leading to E3 and Stadia will be drowned out.
stusser
1720
Yeah, it’s way too late now. You only get one launch. The storyline is Stadia sucks, and it will be extraordinarily challenging for Google to change that. Step one of course would be to make it not suck, and they haven’t even done that yet.
Nesrie
1721
Oh give it a minute. We’ll get someone showing up here to tell us how it works exactly as expected , meanwhile videos and gif of people pressing the spacebar and the avatar jumping noticeably later than that still plays all over the internet.
Menzo
1722
I think you’re mostly right, but a free product is less encumbered by previous impressions, I think. So when Stadia does launch their free tier, I think they’ll get plenty of people to try it.
It better work then, though.
stusser
1723
Try it with what, though? You would need to cough up fifty bucks to buy a game on the platform. You don’t get free Destiny 2 at the free tier.
Nesrie
1724
What would working look like?
So just not noticeable lag. Are we expecting Stadia players to be able to compete with people not on Stadia, for example… as in would they stand a chance? I mean it’s supposed to be negative not just… manageable.
Surely they’ll launch the free tier with demos, at least? They have to have something for people to try.
Menzo
1726
There will certainly be some sort of free trial available.
stusser
1727
I certainly hope so, but they haven’t said anything about that yet. Remember if you play a game on Stadia without paying something, Google actually loses money.
Yeah, my guess is they’ll offer a 1 week free trial of Stadia premium or gold or whatever they’re calling it.
rei
1728
They’re really botching their PR with lack of communication and coordination. When people cancel their Pro now, they stop being able to play Destiny 2 since there isn’t even a working free tier of the “New Light” F2P mode available.
stusser
1729
Stadia is the Fallout: 76 of game streaming services.
rei
1730
Doesn’t look like anything special of a mode. Would have expected some extra sharpening mode for when image quality inevitably turns to Vaseline-smeared shit when network worsens.
We already have one of those. Probably more than one…
rei
1732
Ouya even had a stand out platform exclusive in the form of Towerfall Ascension. How do you do a launch worse than the Ouya?
