Google Stadia team members, including Andrey Doronichev, Director of Product for Stadia at Google, conducted an AMA over at Reddit and in doing so revealed a lot about Stadia that was unknown. One thing that came to light was an upcoming accessory that will most likely prove extremely handy — a phone mount for the controller.
The phone mount, called the Claw (yes, I also had to double check that it wasn’t April Fool’s day or anything similar), was designed by the Stadia team to “float” the phone over the top of the controller. After using a wire coat hanger as their original prototype they then 3D printed a proper prototype.
The team though decided to outsource the production of it to a Made By Google accessory partner, Power Support, rather than build it themselves. The Claw is designed for Pixel smartphones but from the looks of the design there does not seem to be any reason why it would not fit other phones once they support Stadia.
Pricing and availability are unknown at this stage but expect to see it on the Google Store (not the Aussie one just yet though of course) “in the coming weeks” and given the price of accessories on the Google Store do not expect it to be priced competitively.
We still wait for confirmation of Stadia’s launch in to Australia but we have no qualms letting other countries sort out the bugs first and delivering us a bug-free high quality product from the get go.
