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The criticism of Google Stadia and the defense of its concept in this thread are correct. There is a successful future in cloud gaming and nobody denies that.

The criticism of Google Stadia and the defense of its concept in this thread are correct. There is a successful future in cloud gaming and nobody denies that. However, it's extremely likely to be delivered by a company with both the technical chops and industry chops, including a deep existing library. Google only has one of those, and they didn't even nail the technical side convincingly. Look toward Microsoft or Sony instead; all the pieces are there for them to waltz in and drink Stadia's milkshake. And we know they're working on it. It's Disney+ all over again.

macspoofing 7y ago
I agree. If Google was really serious about Stadia, they should have invested in first-party and second-party dev studios to show off the platform (instead of relying on disinterest third parties to port their old games). They should also subsidize the service (and the games) and lose money on it while they educate the public on the benefits of cloud gaming. And yes, they should also forge deeper relationships with third-party developers and sign license deals to maybe turn this into an Xbox-GamePass-Type service (i.e. Netflix for games), or just experiment with other types of business models (maybe something like Audible, where subscription gets you one free game a month). But they did none of it. The focused on the technology with no thought on the value prop and the business and consequently decided on the easisest and worst model where the customer pays full price for old games. Typical Google.
- nvrspyx 7y ago
  I’m not a huge fan of it either and I agree with some of your points, but: 1. They are investing in first-party studios, but I’m not sure about second-party 2. Most of the launch games available to Founders are up to 50% off and included 2 free games (although that’s just like Free Games with Gold so I wouldn’t necessarily say it sets them apart) 3. They’ve worked with other studios getting their games on Stadia. For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2. 4. It took MSFT years to develop Game Pass and the relationships with the developers to do so 5. Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service, which is why Game Pass only has old games and Microsoft’s first-party games (although there might be a couple of exceptions) 6. It’s the developers that are choosing to sell the games for full price. Google definitely could eat some of the cost though
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    Good arguments. We'll have to see how serious they are about Stadia. I don't have a lot of faith in them. But I hope to be proven wrong. The launch was a disaster in that there is no excitement about the platform. I like their statements on first-party development, but quality first-party games should have been at launch and ideally platform sellers. Though I referenced Microsoft, Microsoft isn't doing a great job either. They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games. They have certainly regressed since the Xbox360. >For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2. Developer relations is something that Google is actually pretty good at. They make their engineering resources available to their partners (even outside of Stadia). I worked with them when we moved to GCP. That's not the issue. Their technology isn't the issue. Their engineering talent and technology is top-notch. The issue is the commercial, marketing and business side. They also have a big problem with dealing with customers directly. Their natural inclination is to be a platform. That's great for search, cloud, YouTube (though they should be creating a catalogue of high-quality content), but not great for things like phones, and in this case, Stadia. >Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service Agreed. Exclusivity is very expensive. You won't get RDR2 or MK11 at launch in your subscription service. Even having AAA publishers supporting a marginal platform at all will be a challenge (if they can't move units on your platform, why bother supporting it?). That's why you can't rely on those publishers. They need to be building their own library of first and second party games.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      > They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games. Two very different issues, and both of which are arguably "solved" at this point. 1. Long tail sales is on par for Xbox One with where they should be at, at this point in the generation. 2. Microsoft divested several studios prior to the Xbox One. Such as the aforementioned Bungie which was a first party developer for the Xbox 360, and Epic which was a strong "second party" developer. It's taken them a bit for the spin-ups of their replacements to match their former brethren's output levels (343 and The Coalition, respectively), and Microsoft has also invested heavily into acquisitions in recent years, adding a bunch of interesting heavy hitters (such as Obsidian, inXile), and some interesting oddballs (such as Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Compulsion). It will take a short while for those new first parties' power to be felt in the Xbox space, but no other console manufacturer has invested as much in the first and second party development as Microsoft has recently. The only thing watering that down is that Microsoft (for very good reason) still believes the PC to be their first and oldest console, and "first party exclusives" are getting released to Windows 10 and now (again) Steam simultaneously with Xbox releases. (I think it says a lot that Microsoft let Bungie go. They didn't try to kill the golden goose. It's made the Xbox One a bit slower to catch up to some of the highs that the 360 saw with Halo 1 and Halo 2, but maybe it's so much the better for the industry as a whole that Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 haven't been Xbox Exclusives.)
charwalker 7y ago
Take MSFT game pass and back it on cloud servers. Almost all the games run on Windows, their own OS, and can be optimized for whatever datacenters are on the way out from enterprise apps but with some GPUs tossed in. I'm over simplifying but I'm sure MSFT has a plan out there if they wanted to move forward after seeing how Stadia works out.
- mastax 7y ago
  MSFT has more than a plan. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xcloud https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xclou... Both platforms are at similar levels of maturity, actually, with similarly limited support for platforms, controllers, and games. Microsoft just hasn't had the audacity to charge for their beta test.
- nvrspyx 7y ago
  MSFT are working on xCloud, which uses actual Xbox hardware in the data centers, so you have access to your entire digital Xbox library, including Game Pass. I’m sure they’re going to replace whatever the current hardware they’re testing it with to the Xbox Scarlet hardware when it releases, which should put it on par (or better) than Stadia.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
Disney+ has been out for less than two weeks, and like Apple TV$+-\mul\div\mod$, they're giving it away for peanuts or free to capture users. We'll see how effective their respective libraries are at reducing churn when it comes time to pay the piper.
rstupek 7y ago
My opinion is that Sony doesn't have the cloud chops to put something like that together.
- knodi123 7y ago
  They already did it five years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Now
  - krzyk 7y ago
    I think that was an acquisition, and the choice of games is very poor, it looks like they use PS3 there.
    - knodi123 7y ago
      > the choice of games is very poor Ha, well, that's what all the critics are saying about Stadia, but PS Now has ~800 titles. So it's still pretty comparable. > looks like they use PS3 there They have some PS4 games too.
      - krzyk 7y ago
        Yeah - some. Nothing recent.
knodi123 7y ago
> Look toward Microsoft or Sony instead "Playstation Now" came out years ago. You can stream games, or you can cache the executable locally if you have a dodgy connection or want to go offline. And if I'm reading this correctly, you don't need to pay for the individual games, either - just the service.
- UserIsUnused 7y ago
  "Playstation now" was just a rebranded acquisition and is not fully released to be played on phones/ipads etc in all areas. Nor did it had half the markting of Stadia. It's seemed more of a test bed, for something they plan to do together with the PS5
  - knodi123 7y ago
    Oh, that's interesting. Do you have any more information about the acquisition? Everything I've read online said they developed it in-house. > not fully released to be played on phones/ipads etc in all areas Yes, the feature set is different. But, again, debuted in 2014. And it is available on PC, which shows that at least it's somewhat cross-platform. https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-now/ps-now-on-pc/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-now/ps...
    - UserIsUnused 7y ago
      The wikipedia entry in english is incomplete. >June 30-Sony Computer Entertainment has agreed and signed an agreement to acquire Gaikai for about $ 380 million [12]. that statement is in the playstation now jp wikipedia page. also there >In addition to PlayStation 4 (PS4), it is a cloud-type game service provided to various terminals, and was officially announced under the name “PlayStation Now”. PlayStation 3 (PS3) games will be provided using the technology of SCE subsidiary Gaikai Just transalate the playstation now japanese wikipedia page for more info. also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai
dyingkneepad 7y ago
One thing which Google does have is servers everywhere in the world: pretty much everybody is at a low-latency distance from Google. Considering one of Stadia's main risks is latency, they do have something going on for them that other companies don't. Stadia will still probably fail, but if latency is an issue even for Google, it's hard to believe it won't be for Sony.
- gilrain 7y ago
  Microsoft is the real competition, here. Look into xCloud. They have the network, the technology, and a deep first-party library alongside third-party relationships.
sodafountan 7y ago
Microsoft already announced they're working on xCloud: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xcloud https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xclou... Google is going to face the classic conundrum that anybody who's ever tried to enter the gaming industry has had to face, it doesn't matter how complex the technology is, every generation of gaming has some degree of complexity. Google will need a killer exclusive franchise. When Microsoft entered the market with the original Xbox, it took Halo to make them competitive. When Nintendo did it in the 80's, it was Super Mario Bros. Sega did it with Sonic. Google needs a flagship IP or they'll fail.
eikenberry 7y ago
I think Valve has the option to play king-maker here. They seem to have everything but the inclination to dominate the game streaming market. I don't blame them for not wanting to get into it as running giant hardware farms is way outside their forte. But imagine a streaming service coming out that was tied to your steam account, letting you run all those games but keeping the ability to download them and run them on your PC. I don't really see Sony doing that... I could see MS doing it though as it plays into their cloud ambitions and they seem more open to alliances than the other big cloud players.

macspoofing 7y ago

I agree. If Google was really serious about Stadia, they should have invested in first-party and second-party dev studios to show off the platform (instead of relying on disinterest third parties to port their old games). They should also subsidize the service (and the games) and lose money on it while they educate the public on the benefits of cloud gaming. And yes, they should also forge deeper relationships with third-party developers and sign license deals to maybe turn this into an Xbox-GamePass-Type service (i.e. Netflix for games), or just experiment with other types of business models (maybe something like Audible, where subscription gets you one free game a month). But they did none of it. The focused on the technology with no thought on the value prop and the business and consequently decided on the easisest and worst model where the customer pays full price for old games. Typical Google.

nvrspyx 7y ago
I’m not a huge fan of it either and I agree with some of your points, but: 1. They are investing in first-party studios, but I’m not sure about second-party 2. Most of the launch games available to Founders are up to 50% off and included 2 free games (although that’s just like Free Games with Gold so I wouldn’t necessarily say it sets them apart) 3. They’ve worked with other studios getting their games on Stadia. For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2. 4. It took MSFT years to develop Game Pass and the relationships with the developers to do so 5. Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service, which is why Game Pass only has old games and Microsoft’s first-party games (although there might be a couple of exceptions) 6. It’s the developers that are choosing to sell the games for full price. Google definitely could eat some of the cost though
- macspoofing 7y ago
  Good arguments. We'll have to see how serious they are about Stadia. I don't have a lot of faith in them. But I hope to be proven wrong. The launch was a disaster in that there is no excitement about the platform. I like their statements on first-party development, but quality first-party games should have been at launch and ideally platform sellers. Though I referenced Microsoft, Microsoft isn't doing a great job either. They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games. They have certainly regressed since the Xbox360. >For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2. Developer relations is something that Google is actually pretty good at. They make their engineering resources available to their partners (even outside of Stadia). I worked with them when we moved to GCP. That's not the issue. Their technology isn't the issue. Their engineering talent and technology is top-notch. The issue is the commercial, marketing and business side. They also have a big problem with dealing with customers directly. Their natural inclination is to be a platform. That's great for search, cloud, YouTube (though they should be creating a catalogue of high-quality content), but not great for things like phones, and in this case, Stadia. >Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service Agreed. Exclusivity is very expensive. You won't get RDR2 or MK11 at launch in your subscription service. Even having AAA publishers supporting a marginal platform at all will be a challenge (if they can't move units on your platform, why bother supporting it?). That's why you can't rely on those publishers. They need to be building their own library of first and second party games.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    > They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games. Two very different issues, and both of which are arguably "solved" at this point. 1. Long tail sales is on par for Xbox One with where they should be at, at this point in the generation. 2. Microsoft divested several studios prior to the Xbox One. Such as the aforementioned Bungie which was a first party developer for the Xbox 360, and Epic which was a strong "second party" developer. It's taken them a bit for the spin-ups of their replacements to match their former brethren's output levels (343 and The Coalition, respectively), and Microsoft has also invested heavily into acquisitions in recent years, adding a bunch of interesting heavy hitters (such as Obsidian, inXile), and some interesting oddballs (such as Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Compulsion). It will take a short while for those new first parties' power to be felt in the Xbox space, but no other console manufacturer has invested as much in the first and second party development as Microsoft has recently. The only thing watering that down is that Microsoft (for very good reason) still believes the PC to be their first and oldest console, and "first party exclusives" are getting released to Windows 10 and now (again) Steam simultaneously with Xbox releases. (I think it says a lot that Microsoft let Bungie go. They didn't try to kill the golden goose. It's made the Xbox One a bit slower to catch up to some of the highs that the 360 saw with Halo 1 and Halo 2, but maybe it's so much the better for the industry as a whole that Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 haven't been Xbox Exclusives.)

charwalker 7y ago

Take MSFT game pass and back it on cloud servers. Almost all the games run on Windows, their own OS, and can be optimized for whatever datacenters are on the way out from enterprise apps but with some GPUs tossed in. I'm over simplifying but I'm sure MSFT has a plan out there if they wanted to move forward after seeing how Stadia works out.

mastax 7y ago
MSFT has more than a plan. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xcloud https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xclou... Both platforms are at similar levels of maturity, actually, with similarly limited support for platforms, controllers, and games. Microsoft just hasn't had the audacity to charge for their beta test.
nvrspyx 7y ago
MSFT are working on xCloud, which uses actual Xbox hardware in the data centers, so you have access to your entire digital Xbox library, including Game Pass. I’m sure they’re going to replace whatever the current hardware they’re testing it with to the Xbox Scarlet hardware when it releases, which should put it on par (or better) than Stadia.

unlinked_dll 7y ago

Disney+ has been out for less than two weeks, and like Apple TV$+-\mul\div\mod$, they're giving it away for peanuts or free to capture users. We'll see how effective their respective libraries are at reducing churn when it comes time to pay the piper.

rstupek 7y ago

My opinion is that Sony doesn't have the cloud chops to put something like that together.

knodi123 7y ago
They already did it five years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Now
- krzyk 7y ago
  I think that was an acquisition, and the choice of games is very poor, it looks like they use PS3 there.
  - knodi123 7y ago
    > the choice of games is very poor Ha, well, that's what all the critics are saying about Stadia, but PS Now has ~800 titles. So it's still pretty comparable. > looks like they use PS3 there They have some PS4 games too.
    - krzyk 7y ago
      Yeah - some. Nothing recent.

knodi123 7y ago

> Look toward Microsoft or Sony instead "Playstation Now" came out years ago. You can stream games, or you can cache the executable locally if you have a dodgy connection or want to go offline. And if I'm reading this correctly, you don't need to pay for the individual games, either - just the service.

UserIsUnused 7y ago
"Playstation now" was just a rebranded acquisition and is not fully released to be played on phones/ipads etc in all areas. Nor did it had half the markting of Stadia. It's seemed more of a test bed, for something they plan to do together with the PS5
- knodi123 7y ago
  Oh, that's interesting. Do you have any more information about the acquisition? Everything I've read online said they developed it in-house. > not fully released to be played on phones/ipads etc in all areas Yes, the feature set is different. But, again, debuted in 2014. And it is available on PC, which shows that at least it's somewhat cross-platform. https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-now/ps-now-on-pc/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-now/ps...
  - UserIsUnused 7y ago
    The wikipedia entry in english is incomplete. >June 30-Sony Computer Entertainment has agreed and signed an agreement to acquire Gaikai for about $ 380 million [12]. that statement is in the playstation now jp wikipedia page. also there >In addition to PlayStation 4 (PS4), it is a cloud-type game service provided to various terminals, and was officially announced under the name “PlayStation Now”. PlayStation 3 (PS3) games will be provided using the technology of SCE subsidiary Gaikai Just transalate the playstation now japanese wikipedia page for more info. also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai

dyingkneepad 7y ago

One thing which Google does have is servers everywhere in the world: pretty much everybody is at a low-latency distance from Google. Considering one of Stadia's main risks is latency, they do have something going on for them that other companies don't. Stadia will still probably fail, but if latency is an issue even for Google, it's hard to believe it won't be for Sony.

gilrain 7y ago
Microsoft is the real competition, here. Look into xCloud. They have the network, the technology, and a deep first-party library alongside third-party relationships.

sodafountan 7y ago

Microsoft already announced they're working on xCloud: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xcloud https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-streaming/project-xclou... Google is going to face the classic conundrum that anybody who's ever tried to enter the gaming industry has had to face, it doesn't matter how complex the technology is, every generation of gaming has some degree of complexity. Google will need a killer exclusive franchise. When Microsoft entered the market with the original Xbox, it took Halo to make them competitive. When Nintendo did it in the 80's, it was Super Mario Bros. Sega did it with Sonic. Google needs a flagship IP or they'll fail.

eikenberry 7y ago

I think Valve has the option to play king-maker here. They seem to have everything but the inclination to dominate the game streaming market. I don't blame them for not wanting to get into it as running giant hardware farms is way outside their forte. But imagine a streaming service coming out that was tied to your steam account, letting you run all those games but keeping the ability to download them and run them on your PC. I don't really see Sony doing that... I could see MS doing it though as it plays into their cloud ambitions and they seem more open to alliances than the other big cloud players.