1773

Stadia fan websites are putting together an event to try and get enough Stadia players to fill up the exclusive 40-car race mode that GRiD (2019) has.

1774

10 of the 120 will be limited-time exclusives.

1775

Phew! They were running out of games to give out (no I won’t call them “free”) as part of the Pro subscription price.

1776

Wow…120 with most being just more catalog stuff. For reference the XBox/ One and PS4 are between 2300-2400 titles released in 6 years.

Yep this is gonna be a screamer platform…

1777

So basically no one is going to use the alleged power of the platform to make something truly unique for it, as timed exclusivity just means you can play it on a PC or maybe even a console. Gotcha.

This thing is DOA.

1778

I didn’t expect anything truly unique to come out for years, if ever. I did expect Google to pay for major exclusives to force people to use their service at gunpoint, which it seems like they are not doing.

1779

I think the only true exclusives will be the games from their own dev studio(s), so probably only a couple a year. I do expect some Stadia-specific features to be announced at some point - I guess it’s TBD how appealing they will be to consumers though.

1780

Clearly, but it didn’t have to be that way. They could have followed the time-honored path of buying 3rd party exclusives, like Sony and Microsoft.

I mean, I’m glad they didn’t, but it doesn’t bode well for Stadia’s future.

1781

They talked so much about this opening up new options for multiplayer – side by side, different devices, etc – that I can’t help but wonder if someone is really going to take advantage of that at some point. I remember during their keynote talking about consoles not having the power to do side by side MP on most games, and that Stadia could change that. Would love to see at least one game exploring that.

1782

I think Darksiders Genesis supports that.

I have the game on Stadia, but haven’t tried the local coop.

1783

I wonder if this is one of those examples where Google just didn’t commit enough money. I mean this is probably a multi-hundred million dollar effort, but it probably should be in the billions for them to be successful. They should have bought more exclusives and paid for more ports.

Maybe they’ll gut it out until the free version comes out, but like others have said, you still have to pay for the games for the free version. Hard to see many people committing at this point.

1784

When is Microsoft’s xCloud coming out? Because if it’s anytime soon, I assume it will kill off Stadia entirely. Seems like a no brainer that they will pair it with Game Pass for the ability to play Game Pass games anywhere.

1785

It’s out already in beta. My friend has it and can play Sea of Thieves from his phone.

It’s… not great. But it works. Noticeable latency, same as Stadia. Graphics are not full HD.

1786

About the only thing that is fine with this whole half-baked launch is the tech. Nothing else about it as a platform makes sense. Even if all of its features weren’t missing.

1787

Yep, the tech works, but we already knew that, it isn’t any Google secret sauce. Game streaming has worked pretty well for a couple of years now if you have a consistent internet connection. Stadia was supposed to bring a whole ecosystem, treating it like a console, and they simply didn’t do that.

1788

Certainly, no “negative or predictive latency” not yet.

1789

Now there’s a sales pitch if I’ve ever heard one.

1790

it’s pretty much the sales pitch for the entire airline industry. Sometimes “it works” is all it takes. That said, Shadow works and is actually pretty great. Google’s AC tech demo worked and was pretty great. The tech is proven. Stadia is clearly another example of Google tripping over its own feet, but the tech works.

1791

Except he’s not talking about Stadia. That’s xCloud.

People go through their entire lives without ever setting foot on a plane because they don’t have to fly. I am under the impression these companies not only want to make streaming happen, they want it to be big. I don’t know how you use reviews for your shopping but it’s not great but it works is certainly not going to get much traction unless someone feels they need to have that item or that service… as in no other choice.

1792

We’ve already discussed the many inherent advantages of streaming games. We also talked about the disadvantages, the main difference there being that internet connection quality and transfer caps will improve and be less of an issue over time.

All those things still hold true, and game streaming is still going to be how the mainstream plays video games at some point in the future, it just increasingly looks like that won’t be on Stadia. Microsoft makes a much more compelling case, and their service isn’t even out yet.