When Google announced their new game streaming platform, Stadia, the other morning it took over an hour for all the details to be revealed. If you are like me and couldn’t be bothered watching the whole thing you can still watch it in a condensed version.
Google has provided a very quick, less than four minute, recap of their Stadia announcement at GDC earlier this week. The recap is quick but gives you a quick overview of the entire announcement. I’ll do the same below.
Google has made it’s mark using the cloud to have the information people need at their fingertips when they want it. Whether it is using Google search, Google Photos, Google Drive and any number of Google Cloud services Google have succeeded in leveraging the cloud for all your needs. Stadia is the next evolution of that, providing your gaming needs where ever you want it on whatever device you want, streamed from the cloud.
Stadia is Google’s new video game platform accessed and streamed from the cloud direct to your device, whether it’s a TV, laptop, PC, tablet or mobile phone. Using a “powerful hardware stack” which has a dedicated, purpose-built AMD GPU capable of 10.7 teraflops, Stadia is designed to grow and evolve as the games developers create do.
Each instance of a game (ie. each player) will have an allocated hardware stack which, when you think about economies of scale, boggles the mind — Google are going to have to build a LOT more data centres if Stadia takes off.
The whole idea of Stadia is to connect the entire gaming world. More than 200 million people watch gaming-related videos each day on YouTube. With Stadia many of these games are playable with the simple press of a button. You can also join in with the creator of the video in the game by clicking the enter game button where you will be then queued to enter the same game.
Google, as you would expect, have integrated their search into the platform allowing players to easily do a voice search for things such as how to finish a level etc.
Of course what is a gaming platform without a gaming controller. The Stadia controller does not connect to anything except the internet — directly via your internet connection with Wi-Fi being specifically mentioned as speed over 15-25mbps (numbers vary depending on who you listen to) are preferred (this may change with 5G though of course).
The controller is similar to other gaming controllers except it includes a button for instant capture, saving and sharing your gameplay in up to 4k resolution. What would a device from Google be without a dedicated way to call Google Assistant? So of course there is a Google Assistant button and microphone built into the controller.
There will be no more waiting for games to download, no updates, no patches and no installs to worry about. Immediate access is what you get when you want to enter a game. What more could a gamer want?
It all sounds good in theory and we won’t know how will it works IRL until later this year when it launches in the US, Canada and Europe. It is expected to roll out to other countries and territories as soon as possible.
Who’s in for Stadia or are you sceptical of it working with our lacklustre internet?
Here’s the full announcement for those with an hour or so to spare:
