Google’s Stadia launch is…not great. A poor value proposition, small selection, and a huge list of missing features have made the critical response to the streaming platform tepid at best. Our own review was less than kind.
But that doesn’t mean that you should ignore Stadia, or indeed, Google. While it’s not a great experience at the moment, Google is setting the foundation of its platform, and it has the time and resources to go toe-to-toe with some of the biggest names in the gaming industry. With Sony and Microsoft both ramping up for new console releases in 2020 and preparing for some of the same high-bandwidth game streaming options, this is anybody’s race.
It’s a Beta
As we said in the review, Stadia is a beta in everything but name. Until the free tier arrives next year, allowing players to hop on without a $130 hardware bundle and a $10-a-month subscription (which doesn’t come with any games, a la the Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now), it’s an expensive novelty.
It doesn’t help that Google is positioning Stadia as its own platform, which developers need to develop specifically for, thanks to its custom cloud-based hardware and Vulkan graphics API. That stands in direct contrast to streaming offerings from Microsoft, Sony, and NVIDIA, that work with existing Xbox, PlayStation, and PC games, respectively. Stadia has a handful of newer titles, but most of its initial offering is at least a year old, with just one indie exclusive, Gylt.
Another bit of evidence that Stadia is in beta: it’s missing tons of features. Aside from streaming to different screens, none of the unique features Google showed off at GDC earlier this year are available on day one. It doesn’t integrate with YouTube or Google Home/Assistant, it can’t stream to iPhones or non-Pixel Android phones, the game store is only accessible from a phone, and it can’t even export screenshots or video clips.
So why launch it early at all, if so much stuff is missing? The popular wisdom is that this is essentially an elaborate capacity test. Google’s going full early adopter, letting buyers of the $130 Founder’s Edition and Premiere Edition test the waters of its custom-made gaming data centers. The company will use this time, with a much more limited pool of concurrent players, to iron out the kinks in its system.
RELATED: Google Stadia Review: An Expensive and Limited Beta
Then when the free tier unlocks and (hopefully) a million or two people jump on to their Chrome browsers to play Destiny 2, the system won’t buckle. Google is investing in its own publishing company, as every major platform holder has, means that it should improve its selection of exclusive and cloud-powered games, too.
Google Has a Good Reason to Stay
Why is Google so interested in the gaming market, after having only touched it lightly before via Android? Why do you think? Video games are now a bigger industry than even Hollywood movies, with over $130 billion a year of earnings expected to balloon up to $300 billion in the next decade or so.
Read the remaining 14 paragraphs
from How-To Geek https://ift.tt/2Xrc6FC
No comments:
Post a Comment