I wish Google had labeled Stadia as a beta product because that’s what it is. If they had, I’d be able to recommend the streaming game platform as a curiosity to interested early adopters.
But instead, Google is positioning the Stadia Founder’s Edition and the nearly identical Premiere Edition as a retail product. And evaluated on those terms, it’s not ready for prime time and not ready to compete with the established giants of the gaming industry. Whether you look at Stadia in terms of value, of selection, or just on the features that Google demonstrated earlier this year, it’s not a good package. Yet.
That “yet” is a big word crammed into just three letters. Stadia has a lot of room to grow, and do so in ways that more conventional game platforms can’t. But the purpose of this review is to answer the question, “should you buy it?” And right now, the answer is no.
Hardware
If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you know at least a bit about Stadia as a streaming game platform. If you’re not, give my copy editor a break and read this article to get caught up.
Eventually, Stadia will be accessible in a free tier, with no purchases necessary. But to get in this year, you’ll need to buy the $130 “Premiere Edition” (which appears to be identical to the “Founder’s Edition,” just with a white controller), which includes a 4K-enabled Chromecast Ultra and Google’s gee-whiz Wi-Fi-powered Stadia controller.
How’s the controller? Very good. That said, it’s not as if it’s something unique, using the same basic layout that PlayStation has had since the original Dual Shock and the curvy, comfy body of Nintendo’s Switch Pro Controller. It feels great. It’s got buttons. I like the little splash of color underneath the analog sticks.
Unfortunately, the controller doesn’t do everything Google said it would at Stadia’s launch. That’s going to be a recurring theme here. The Chromecast included in the package is the standard Ultra with a little extra firmware to enable use with the controller. No, you can’t access Stadia with an older Chromecast, Ultra, or otherwise. Eventually, everyone will get that crucial update, but not yet.
Does it Work?
If you’re wondering whether Stadia works, it does. It works really well! At least under the somewhat limited conditions of the launch. Once you’re all set up with your account, and using the controller and Chromecast on a network that can handle the 25 megabits per second connection, it does indeed deliver 4K, sixty frames per second, with no noticeable delay or drop in framerates.
It’s impressive to see in motion, watching Destiny 2 pump out graphics better than my GTX 1080 PC could handle, using nothing more than a cheap streaming stick on my end. After a minute or two of play, it was easy to forget that I wasn’t using any high-powered hardware, just a nebulous, AMD-powered “Stadia Instance” somewhere on a Google data center.
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from How-To Geek https://ift.tt/37dbqIt
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