Google Stadia Pricing & More Revealed

No Pedro stop it.

@pyro1245 Its not a given at all, in fact most people are pretty much open to the idea of game streaming being the future... We are just uncertain of Stadia which is understandable because there are many unanswered question to do with the platform and its a unreleased and unproven technology, and most people naively hoped it would just be a subscription based service.

This is for all of us on the forum because its a gaming forum and we are gamer's and all our opinions here are valid, even yours Pedro.

So before jump back on your neutral high horse and ride off into the sunset please understand that its not just us clueless and juvenile forum dwelling gamer's who are confused with Stadias target audience and or potential success its also the professional gaming journalists who streamed/covered the conference that are confused/worried/excited at the same time.

No one is depriving you of your opinions on the service just that your view is not the only view and just because you don't see value in the service doesn't mean its of no value to anyone. Instead of simply accepting this simply truth you doubled down this false entitlement because you play games. Couple with the notion that you are equivalent to a professional photographer, when you are simply a consumer. There are different markets of consumer and not all markets are geared for or towards you. That's the point. It doesn't matter how many systems you own, or your internet connection. If you don't like or see value in the service move on.

I'm fine with products that I don't like existing as long as it doesn't negatively impact the things that I do like. But if this Google crap is successful then it opens the door for the entire video game industry to move more towards streaming and away from dedicated hardware and physical media which would be terrible and is something that I never want to see happen.

I wish failure upon Google Stadia and any other streaming product not to be juvenile, but to help protect things that I love about the video game industry.

Huh? So might as well wait for that.

Unless they're gonna cap it at 30fps or something, I don't see the big deal of gaming at 1080p.

4K/60 also sounds rather wonderful and more than what Sony or MS will be able to pull out of their hat = ass

i will admit that 4 player splitscreen online coop is awesome. reminds me of playing mario kart 64 splitscreen with my friends.

i hope mario kart on switch2 or something has this one day.

Despite all of the streaming options consumers can still purchase hardcopy versions. Why would it be any different for gaming? And it is juvenile if you view your way as the only acceptable option.

Who wouldn't want to take advantage if the free service? Will gladly use the free option to play titles I don't have access to.

IDK, I'll try it for Free. Surely there's a demo or something to goof around with for free. I definitely won't plop $60 down for a game on this unknown thing though

Having to buy new games separately is going to kill this.

You pay for it to then stream it.....but once you stop your subscription you can't play anymore?

That's fraud.

@Star67: no your account would just revert to the free tier

That is something they can look into finessing.

Yes, I'm going to do the same thing. I will wait for it to play AC: Odyssey.

@Grey_Eyed_Elf: Looks like the main reason why Google hasn't talked about data caps is due to the fact that it can cap up to 1 TB in at least 65 hrs.... @XVision84 update your thread now!

Link

@Star67: that's not really how it works. You're basically buying a digital game, just like on Steam, and either a) playing it for Free on a cloud computer or b) playing it for a Fee on a better cloud computer. Option b) also includes some games - which you don't pay for above the recurring fee (a la netflix or Nintendo Online NES). That's actually a pretty smart system if you ask me - basically PC gaming as normal, without having to buy a PC.

How is this different from 4k video content?

Cloud gaming on a Netflix-like scale seemed too ambitious of a project just a few short years ago. Unlike streaming movies or music directly to your TV or phone, cloud gaming relies on the user sending inputs back to the cloud server while receiving video and audio simultaneously. Latency, low bandwidth, and a few other things can already make that hard for someone playing on a local machine, let alone streaming it themselves.

Link

I understand all of that but the user data is insignificant. Most of the data transfer would be equivalent to streaming 4k content except double due to games being 60fps vs 24-30fps.

It'll be interesting to see how this will unfold....just saw The Division 2 announced for the console, they are getting some big games.

This should be about as popular as the PSP go.

Right now as is I'm not interested, but by next holiday season when the other systems launch this could be an attractive alternative to paying $500 for unnecessary hardware.

It all depends on the software, but if this thing has a similar library then why would anyone spend $500 instead of a hundred or so for a streaming stick and a controller to play the same games?

I meant that people who frequent a forum are likely to be more discerning when it comes to gaming and typically already have the means to play a video game in their preferred format.

I don't believe streaming and traditional gaming are mutually exclusive, on the contrary, both will exist for a very very long time. I've seen how slow the industry is to adopt change

I think Stadia is good for several reasons:

• Bring more games to the masses via tables and phones and low-spec PCs.
• New interesting tech is always good.
• Will push people to care more about their internet connections and put more pressure on ISPs to provide a decent service
• Running on server clusters typically means running on Linux, and I am for gaming on Linux to improve. Right now a majority of gaming is exclusive to Windows, and exclusivity is never a good thing for consumer (never ever).

@storm_of_swords Have you seen how slow the industry is to adopt change? I have. This will have no effect on traditional gaming - not for a long, long time. Wishing failure on Stadia is short-sighted and makes you sound bitter and selfish. I'll do you one better - I think the addition of Stadia to the industry will improve the traditional gaming you know and love, especially if it works well.

Pricing structure aside, frankly, I think it's pretty sad that so many people who claim to be interested in gaming are so against new ideas in gaming.

All that said: I plan on checking out Stadia, but I don't ever plan on using a streaming service as my primary form of gaming.

This thing is DOA. I get unlimited internet but I know most people don't.

I am for anything that puts another nail in the hardware coffin.

sounds very anti consumer to me

Anyway, I won't be getting this. Google intrudes our life enough already.

Once again Australia is left out, Our internet isn't that terrible anymore and anyone who games has the speed to use it, so why we left out again?

I understand but...

• The masses play free games on phones and tablets and have low spec PC's because they don't care much about gaming and paying $60 for a game is the last thing they will
• New and interesting tech is not always a good thing for the core gamer as seen by motion controls where gaming had to be dumbed down
• Most people do but just can't afford a better connection and or don't have access to a better connection, also only the 4k/60 Pro service will actually have impact... The masses you are talking about chances are they don't care enough to pay 9.99 a month for a gaming service and will opt for the free service stadia offer which will work 720/60 on a 10Mbps connection which is under the average speed in the UK and US so it wont have much impact or any what so ever really.
• Actually that is a myth... Exclusive games sell consoles which naturally inspires competition between the console manufacturers to hook gamers attention with their exclusives so the manufacturers inspire and fund developers to gives us better exclusives and or new experiences you need look no further than Playstation and Nintendo.

Stadia will have a hard time attracting the masses due to the fact that you still have to pay for the games which aren't cheap and the main reason why mobile gaming has taking off and free to play games are the here and played by millions a average Joe has little interest in a $60 game and if they did they would already have a console or two.

The only audience here really is people who have a console and play casually go for the Stadia rather than a PS5/X4 due to not having to pay for a new console and they are already use to buying games and paying for online... But the core gamer and the average joe non gamer has no real reason to outside of curiosity.

That's just my two cents.

@Grey_Eyed_Elf:

And this is a correct assessment. The reason Steam is so popular is because they can offer tons of games at cheap prices. With Stradia the cost of the game is built into the service. I’ve said it before but I doubt their games will drop in price like most consumers expect. Now if it integrated directly with my steam account I might bite. For the price of this service I could rent a shadow or any cloud GPU windows machine and run my existing steam library.

You were the guy saying Anthem wouldn't fail either lol.

"Compressed pixels" = Google Stadia.

Data cap will prevent Stadia for me.

? REKT!

Wait a minute... Does this mean the X isn’t the best console for multiplats come November? For only $10 a month (plus the price of a game if it’s not Destiny 2) you can play games at 4K/60 at over 10 Tflops of power. That means higher settings! Lems sure didn’t have the crown very long, did they?

@goldenelementxl: it’s not a console

More a my pc does 4k60 destroyer

Except, I didn't. :o

As long as core gamers don't support this shit it will fail and go out of service

We need this to flop I don't want google trying to persuade devs to go streaming only.

I can’t believe anyone actually thinks that this thing will gain any traction. It’s a google product...

How many successful/innovative products have they put out and supported for more than one firmware update

Android devices says hello. Chrome books also says hello.

I think I'll pass on this and any other company that tries to do this. I like to own physical copies of games.

Sounds very good to me, I will definitely give this a try.

I did not know there are still data caps? Where on earth are you?

@Pedro: Chrome books are not successful whatsoever. Besides android OS and google search engine...

Be real Pedro. https://gcemetery.co/

I may be in the minority here, but I think Stadia could be successful.

I think there are a lot of gamers who would be okay with buying a controller and streaming - to their PC, to their Pixel smartphone, or TVs. The fact that this requires no other dedicated hardware to enjoy and can be played on devices that would otherwise be unable to play it, is a huge selling-point. And this is Google we're talking about, so I suspect if anyone has the databases to support something like this, it's them.

You and I may not jump onto Stadia. I don't have wi-fi and I agree with the sentiment that having physical games is nice, and the Internet infrastructure and pricing in much of the world may not be up to snuff. But for a lot of gamers, they will have wi-fi and will be in towns and cities that offer really decent Internet, and they won't be as concerned with owning physical copies.

I dunno, I think I am convinced that Google will make a foothold for itself in the gaming industry.

Some of these companies must be desperately hoping for a streaming only future for gaming.

- no longer have to manufacture expensive hardware

- eliminate the cost of manufacturing and shipping games on a physical format

- completely control the accessibility to their games

- utterly eliminate piracy

- no more user mods

I’m not sure how manufacturers of PC components feel about this as they would lose out on providing components to the console makers and there really be no need to selling gaming components to PC gamers anymore.

I am extremely sceptical when it comes to the actual performance of this service... It clearly says UP TO 4K/60FPS.

Why would they say that?... Is it because a Vega 56 is not enough for 4K/60 on every game and that games will vary in resolution regardless of you paying for a Pro service if they are too demanding or is that UP TO just for the fact that it requires a high speed connection.

Either way I am sceptical and look forward to seeing just what resolution and settings these demanding games run at and the quality of the stream in comparison to a native image on PC... Scratch sceptical, I am certain they will use lower settings than the highest due to games like Metro having RTX features and the fact that I don't believe they will give people more than one instance.

@michaelmikado: "On a $60 game the royalty would be around $18 which would likely be used to cover the cost of streaming it. The only issue with this approach is that there is little reason to incentive reducing game prices over time because that would also reduce royalties. I expect games to remain full price for longer if not indefinitely in order for the "free" method to remain fiscally viable."

This is a really important point - especially for PC where games tend to have steep and frequent discounts on the digital stores. While everyone seems to be throwing their controller at the screen over internet speeds, this seems like a more real issue.

To the internet speed thing: I think it's almost a non-issue. You can throw stats up about how few people have the right internet speed - but note that most of those people aren't the audience for this product in the first place. The correct stat, which I've never seen anyone post, is what % of *core gamers* has the required speeds. And what % of core gamers is interested in game streaming?

My guess: something like 90% of core gamers in the US who would ever be interested in this product in the first place DO have the requisite internet speed. Does anyone honestly think Google is releasing this without having done any such market research?

Also, sidebar - don't forget Google is selling its own internet service - and that has the requisite speeds and NO data caps. Stadia isn't being sold in a vacuum - it's part of a bigger Google product family

@xantufrog:

The issue with the connection is no speed its the impact of your connection to the input lag and frame rate of the game if your connection is on heavy use in your home.

I have a 364Mbps Virgin media connection but every once and a while a video on youtube would drop from 4K to 480-1080p for brief period and I would have to manually set it back to 4K or it would occasionally buffer... Now this is a video not a issue what so ever, but a game?... I think regardless of speed of connection people will have issues just as bad as performance issue on a console with the service due to inconsistencies or uses of your connection at home.

I mean you could have a 50Mbps connection which is more than enough but if you live in a house hold with 2 tvs or more like me and your wife watches a netflix show at 4K and you boot up Stadia... How will that impact not just the stream quality and resolution but the actual performance you receive.

I look forward to the testing of this service also yes the price of the games is and will be its major hurdle in order to get the mass audience and gamer's interested... I think it will do just enough to survive and establish it self as a service but I don't think it will be a major success from the get go and will have MANY issues from a technical side.

Streaming games. Promoting it with Destiny 2.

How can they make this thing sound more disgusting?

Looks like Google is gonna try to do the ATARI challenge.

This thing is very likely gonna flop. Streaming, especially in rural areas, is very unreliable. And it's an immediate no go for people like me with data caps. Also, I don't imagine it getting a whole lot of games. How are devs gonna make money if it's on a $12 streaming platform?

No iOS support, no Android support.....seems like that is a huge misstep. I also don’t like a subscription service to play any of the games I own. Hmmmmm, not super excited.