3 ms·

The $129 starting bundle gives you a controller ($69), and a Chromecast Ultra ($69), which is... $138. Plus the bundle gives 3 months of "Stadia Pro" which is

by kyrra 7y ago

The $129 starting bundle gives you a controller ($69), and a Chromecast Ultra ($69), which is... $138. Plus the bundle gives 3 months of "Stadia Pro" which is the 4k streaming support (plus other goodies). So the $129 is more of a starter bundle. If you just want to play on your phone or PC, it's free (outside the cost of buying games). You can plug a PS4 or XBox controller into your PC, or pair them with your phone via bluetooth and use those. I believe there is also Nintendo Switch controller support. (I'm a googler, opinions are my own)

v01dlight 7y ago
Ok Google.
Someone1234 7y ago
Just to be clear the XBox One S for $150/$200 listed above also included a controller, it isn't just a bare console with no way to play on it. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
- touchpadder 7y ago
  As an author of a browser game https://bad.city https://bad.city I noticed that over the last 5 years browser performance became 10x faster. The game currently works at 60fps, even on 2 year old Galaxy Note and has 0ms lag. With web workers and web assembly soon we'll see AAA games running in the browser on any device. No need to download 50gb game when you can progressively stream the 3d models in real time while playing and it will not depend on latency. It's already possible to run local wifi game servers on the phones. I see Stadia working for casual games on smart TVs but not for any competitive gaming. This process creates too much lag: send controller input over the wire, render on server, compress 4k video, send over the wire to the client, decompress 4k video, display in the device
  - dwild 7y ago
    > With web workers and web assembly soon we'll see AAA games running in the browser on any device. I heard something similar to that for the past 10 years at least. > you can progressively stream the 3d models in real time while playing People were amazed of the speed at which models loaded using an SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive... and that was when games were in the 5 GB range. Loading time is latency too. > I see Stadia working for casual games on smart TVs but not for any competitive gaming. Competitive gaming go toward more expensive gear... they won't care about buying an expensive graphic card if that give them an edge, or lower latency screen. If they are forced to play on cloud, they'll just pay for a better connection to do it. This is just like the stock market where they build datacenter just beside the exchange. I don't know if you would call me a "casual gamer", I'm certainly not a competitive gamer, but I get quite a bit of fun playing Borderland 3 on Nvidia Geforce Now. The latency isn't that bad, nothing I can really notice at least.
    - touchpadder 7y ago
      Turbofan optimisations, SharedArrayBuffer, Web Assembly really impacted performance of my game engine. With enough assets it's already possible to make GTA V complexity and quality game running in the browser. The biggest progress in browsers and webgl performance happened in the last 3 years so it doesn't matter what you've been hearing 10 years ago. It already happened and is possible NOW, even on phones. "Loading time is latency too" no it isn't. It doesn't matter if you're getting closer to an object and in the distance it fades in(or loads higher LOD) even with 500ms delay. But in streaming game as a video when the whole gameplay is delayed by 300ms it already makes entire competitive game unplayable.
      - dwild 7y ago
        > The biggest progress in browsers and webgl performance happened in the last 3 years so it doesn't matter what you've been hearing 10 years ago. There has been some amazing progress in the past 10 years too ... > It doesn't matter if you're getting closer to an object and in the distance it fades in(or loads higher LOD) even with 500ms delay. If it fades in 484ms for the other guy, he just saw you a full frame earlier than you (and that's excluding the potential 484 ms remaining ;)). That sound much more like gamebreaking than my 50 ms over Nvidia Geforce Now, but I'm also just a casual gamer.
        touchpadder 7y ago
        I'm talking about extreme delay of the object fading in, too far in the distance to be interactive(that's why I also mentioned LOD for objects close enough to be interactive). Your 50ms is 50ms of info provided by nvidia and a fan of game streaming wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 50ms and 150ms of pressing a button and actual reaction on the screen lol
    - smileybarry 7y ago
      Streaming will never take off for competitive playing, because the physical latency will always be there. You already have people optimizing their display & input latency, not to mention GPU buffering tweaks, to shave anywhere from 5-20ms off the final result, and that's in _local_ gaming. Windows 10 1803 introduced a "fake fullscreen" mode to cut around the window compositor lag. Assuming Stadia really does all these render path micro-optimizations perfectly, you then have the issue of datacenter location and speed of light creating more latency. And because in this case the end user needs to react in real time rather than offload operations or create autonomous behaviour (the stock market example), at some point they'll have to move closer to their nearest datacenter. (assuming the US ISP landscape is fixed by then)
skohan 7y ago
Of course if you buy the XBox bundle, you pay once and you can play Red Dead Redemption 2 as long as you want in 4k. If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee. This past weekend I played Outlaw on my Atari 2600. Assuming I paid $40 when it came out, that means I paid 8¢/month for that game. Talk about value!
  - drusepth 7y ago
    I would assume you wouldn't have been paying $0.08/month since 1976 (just like you wouldn't be paying monthly on Stadia when you weren't using it), so the monthly cost for the game would actually be significantly higher if you want to amortize its cost over months you've actually played. :P
    - loco5niner 7y ago
      > just like you wouldn't be paying monthly on Stadia when you weren't using it Just like I don't pay for my gym membership when I'm not using it ;-)

by kyrra 7y ago

v01dlight 7y ago

Ok Google.

Someone1234 7y ago

Just to be clear the XBox One S for $150/$200 listed above also included a controller, it isn't just a bare console with no way to play on it. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

touchpadder 7y ago
As an author of a browser game https://bad.city https://bad.city I noticed that over the last 5 years browser performance became 10x faster. The game currently works at 60fps, even on 2 year old Galaxy Note and has 0ms lag. With web workers and web assembly soon we'll see AAA games running in the browser on any device. No need to download 50gb game when you can progressively stream the 3d models in real time while playing and it will not depend on latency. It's already possible to run local wifi game servers on the phones. I see Stadia working for casual games on smart TVs but not for any competitive gaming. This process creates too much lag: send controller input over the wire, render on server, compress 4k video, send over the wire to the client, decompress 4k video, display in the device
- dwild 7y ago
  > With web workers and web assembly soon we'll see AAA games running in the browser on any device. I heard something similar to that for the past 10 years at least. > you can progressively stream the 3d models in real time while playing People were amazed of the speed at which models loaded using an SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive... and that was when games were in the 5 GB range. Loading time is latency too. > I see Stadia working for casual games on smart TVs but not for any competitive gaming. Competitive gaming go toward more expensive gear... they won't care about buying an expensive graphic card if that give them an edge, or lower latency screen. If they are forced to play on cloud, they'll just pay for a better connection to do it. This is just like the stock market where they build datacenter just beside the exchange. I don't know if you would call me a "casual gamer", I'm certainly not a competitive gamer, but I get quite a bit of fun playing Borderland 3 on Nvidia Geforce Now. The latency isn't that bad, nothing I can really notice at least.
  - touchpadder 7y ago
    Turbofan optimisations, SharedArrayBuffer, Web Assembly really impacted performance of my game engine. With enough assets it's already possible to make GTA V complexity and quality game running in the browser. The biggest progress in browsers and webgl performance happened in the last 3 years so it doesn't matter what you've been hearing 10 years ago. It already happened and is possible NOW, even on phones. "Loading time is latency too" no it isn't. It doesn't matter if you're getting closer to an object and in the distance it fades in(or loads higher LOD) even with 500ms delay. But in streaming game as a video when the whole gameplay is delayed by 300ms it already makes entire competitive game unplayable.
    - dwild 7y ago
      > The biggest progress in browsers and webgl performance happened in the last 3 years so it doesn't matter what you've been hearing 10 years ago. There has been some amazing progress in the past 10 years too ... > It doesn't matter if you're getting closer to an object and in the distance it fades in(or loads higher LOD) even with 500ms delay. If it fades in 484ms for the other guy, he just saw you a full frame earlier than you (and that's excluding the potential 484 ms remaining ;)). That sound much more like gamebreaking than my 50 ms over Nvidia Geforce Now, but I'm also just a casual gamer.
      - touchpadder 7y ago
        I'm talking about extreme delay of the object fading in, too far in the distance to be interactive(that's why I also mentioned LOD for objects close enough to be interactive). Your 50ms is 50ms of info provided by nvidia and a fan of game streaming wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 50ms and 150ms of pressing a button and actual reaction on the screen lol
  - smileybarry 7y ago
    Streaming will never take off for competitive playing, because the physical latency will always be there. You already have people optimizing their display & input latency, not to mention GPU buffering tweaks, to shave anywhere from 5-20ms off the final result, and that's in _local_ gaming. Windows 10 1803 introduced a "fake fullscreen" mode to cut around the window compositor lag. Assuming Stadia really does all these render path micro-optimizations perfectly, you then have the issue of datacenter location and speed of light creating more latency. And because in this case the end user needs to react in real time rather than offload operations or create autonomous behaviour (the stock market example), at some point they'll have to move closer to their nearest datacenter. (assuming the US ISP landscape is fixed by then)

skohan 7y ago

Of course if you buy the XBox bundle, you pay once and you can play Red Dead Redemption 2 as long as you want in 4k. If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee.

reaperducer 7y ago
If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee. This past weekend I played Outlaw on my Atari 2600. Assuming I paid $40 when it came out, that means I paid 8¢/month for that game. Talk about value!
- drusepth 7y ago
  I would assume you wouldn't have been paying $0.08/month since 1976 (just like you wouldn't be paying monthly on Stadia when you weren't using it), so the monthly cost for the game would actually be significantly higher if you want to amortize its cost over months you've actually played. :P
  - loco5niner 7y ago
    > just like you wouldn't be paying monthly on Stadia when you weren't using it Just like I don't pay for my gym membership when I'm not using it ;-)