Google Stadia

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Drarok
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Drarok » Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:03 am

It's not just the last mile either – it's physical distance that's deadly to this approach.

My ping to a server inside my ISP in London (and I'm in Oxford) is 18ms on average, on a fast connection. I play games regularly at home where my ping is around 20ms, which lines up. I'm in Oxford, which is really damn close to London. The further away from the datacentre you get, the worse your ping will be. It's not even just about the speed of light in fibre optic cables (31% slower than in a vacuum) since our country is only small, but each additional piece of networking equipment on the way adds more latency, plus every time you press a button using Stadia, your latency is effectively doubled.

Normally you move, your computer renders that immediately and sends the movement to the server. With Stadia, you press a button, which is sent to the remote server (18ms minimum for me), which renders the change and sends it back to you (another 18ms minimum). Now, 40ms doesn't sound like a lot, but that's best-case scenario based on them having a server inside my ISP. Which they won't.
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Medicine Man
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Medicine Man » Mon Jun 03, 2019 6:47 pm

Google will reveal the release date and pricing for Stadia on June 6th in it's first Stadia Connect presentation...


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Raid
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Raid » Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:43 pm

Announcing this just prior to E3 is clever timing on behalf of Google, as it's going to be a point of comparison for any E3-related article. There's a huge opportunity for Google to knock this out of the park; if they have a major exclusive or two, they'll steal headlines that the big players at E3 would otherwise have had.

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DjchunKfunK
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by DjchunKfunK » Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:23 pm

I would be extremely surprised if they had an exclusive, or at least one that was worthwhile. I have heard that this is where we will see Baldur's Gate 3 revealed but not as an exclusive and it is likely to headline the event. If they don't talk about pricing thought the whole thing will be pointless.

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Raid » Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:27 pm

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:23 pm
If they don't talk about pricing thought the whole thing will be pointless.
They say they will be discussing pricing in that video.

I don't think exclusives are out of the question given the financial clout of Google. Even if they're not massive (I'm not exactly expecting GTA6 here), there has to be something attention grabbing if Google think this is ready for the mainstream.

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by DjchunKfunK » Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:40 am

I'm not sure exclusives are necessary, the whole point of the product is that it allows anyone to play games, it's main audience is going to be people who don't own consoles or a gaming PC. In that context you don't need exclusives you just need to be able to show that it can play the top games without any issues. I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be to pay for exclusives when the people who would care about such stuff are the most sceptical about the whole thing.

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Medicine Man » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:09 pm

Seems things are a tad leaky in cloud-land.

https://mcvuk.com/stadia-details-leak-b ... 2-a-month/
Stadia will launch in 14 countries in November. Initially it will only be available as a $11.99 per month (uncertain if this is US or Canadian) subscription called Stadia Pro, which will provide 4K/60fps streaming, along with a catalogue of existing titles – much like Xbox Game Pass.

A service with no monthly fee will launch later, called Stadia Base (translation TBC) sometime in 2020, and won’t include any existing titles. This service will be limited to 1080p streaming

There will be a ‘Founder’s Edition’ of Stadia available for $169 from today. That will include a Stadia controller, Chromecast Ultra (required for 4K streaming), a copy of Destiny 2 (which you’d think would be included in the subscription instead) and three months of Stadia Pro.

The information comes from an interview with Majd Bakar, VP and Head of Engineering at Stadia. a french-speaking Canadian who hails from Montreal.

Launch titles on the service, some of which will presumably will be included in Stadia Pro package, will include Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, The Division 2, DOOM and the last three Tomb Raider titles. A total of 31 games will be available at launch, including six from Ubisoft in total. Bakar commented: “All the games can go on Stadia, there is no constraint.”

Hardware support at launch appears to be more limited than we first imagined. From our understanding you’ll need both a Chromecast and a Stadia controller at launch. Support for current Google devices, such as Pixel 3 and 3a and Pixel Slate will come in 2020. As will support for any PC or laptop with Chrome installed. That appears to put back support of any mobile device, from any manufacturer.

Bakar noted: “More devices will be supported as we go along. Our vision for the future is to have games available on any device.”

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:22 pm

They should have labelled this as a beta because going by what that article talks about it very much feels like one, just you have to pay to take part.

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Medicine Man » Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:01 pm

Stadia Connect live now...


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Achtung Englander
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Achtung Englander » Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:28 pm

$10 / £10 per month

The reviews of this thing will be fascinating. If you can unsubscribe at any time than this pretty good value especially those who burn through games quickly. Will there be enough content to offset Microsoft GamePass and PSNow content, that is the key question (as well as latency / experience)

I think this is great as it opens more avenues to access games.

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Medicine Man
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Medicine Man » Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:37 pm

£8.99 a month in real money. £119 for the founders bundle. The free service isnt due until sometime next year.

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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Achtung Englander » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:02 pm

£9 a month is pretty good in my books if the experience is great and the choice good. What is that - 3 Costa coffees ?

Its all about choice. If some AAA games went exclusive on Stadia than that would suck, but from they showed this is not the case as all of these games can be bought elsewhere. It looks like the smaller indie games are exclusive, but...you know...who gives a fuck about them and if you really wanted to play an exclusive indie game, sub for 1 month and play it.

I think this is great.
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Raid » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:15 pm

I'll reserve judgement until the reviews start coming in; this will live or die on its ability to cope on lesser connections, and the amount of server availability. If, like pretty much every major gaming launch in the last few years the servers can't cope with demand at launch, that's not going to go unnoticed, and it may take a lot of effort to overcome that poor first impression.

The founder's edition is actually reasonably priced given the included Chromecast Ultra alone is sold for £70. I did however laugh a bit when they announced Destiny 2 being an important part of the bundle. They *do* know about the game's poor reputation, and that it was given away for free by Blizzard last year, right?

....

Oh. I thought that subscription fee was for access to all of the content on the service. It isn't, it's more akin to Game Pass where you get *some* games included in the price. You still have to actually buy individual games then (which will no doubt be the same price as physical editions). No thanks.

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Achtung Englander
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Achtung Englander » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:24 pm

totally agree and I said it wholly depends upon experience.

As far as I can tell the Pro was all can eat for £9. I may be wrong. If you have to buy extras, than this will die off pretty quick
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Raid » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:29 pm

Achtung Englander wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:24 pm
As far as I can tell the Pro was all can eat for £9. I may be wrong. If you have to buy extras, than this will die off pretty quick
Nope. From Eurogamer:
A Stadia Pro subscription (which will cost £8.99/$9.99 USD a month once those initial three months expire) is the only way to stream games at 4K/60fps with HDR and 5.1 surround sound - a feat that will require download speeds of around 35 megabits per second.

There are additional benefits to a Pro account, however; it'll offer access to some currently undisclosed free games to be added 'regularly', exclusive discounts on games for purchase (which is how you'll be acquiring the bulk of your Stadia library), plus there's a limited-time offer of access to the "full Destiny 2 experience".
Don't get me wrong; I wasn't *expecting* an entire games platform for a total of £9 a month, that really would be too generous to be believable, but their launch video wasn't especially clear on the matter and I thought that it was perhaps just introductory pricing.

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