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Yes. But for all of those you need to buy hardware that can actually play the games. (A few hundred for a console, a thousand for a PC). The promise of game str
by jsnell 7y ago
Yes. But for all of those you need to buy hardware that can actually play the games. (A few hundred for a console, a thousand for a PC). The promise of game streaming is that you can play AAA games on the low-powered laptop or phone that you already have.
There's a few possible business models for streaming. E.g. with PS Now you have to pay a subscription, you get access to a games library, and can only play the games that are part of the library. (Not other PS4 games that you own). Or GeForce Now which in practice requires a subscription (the free tier is only 1 hour at a time) and allows you to play a limited set of games as long as you own them on the right platform (e.g. Steam). Xcloud seems quite likely to just be sold bundled together as part of another subscription.
So the free tier of Stadia should have been interesting due to not requiring a large up-front investment, and not requiring an ongoing subscription. Which at least at this moment is unique. Or rather, would be unique, because 9 months after the announcement it still has not launched.
- chillfox 7y agoExcept that you can’t actually use stadia to play on the low end equipment you already have. It only works on a select few high end phones, it only works on the most expensive chrome cast, and it requires a high end internet connection. The people who have the money for that stuff is likely to easily afford a Nintendo Switch which can actually be used for gaming everywhere without needing an internet connection.
- technofiend 7y ago>Except that you can’t actually use stadia to play on the low end equipment you already have. Er, Stadia works just fine on a chromebook with a 10 Mbit/s internet connection? That's about as low end as it gets for both measures. Does it require a high end phone to play on a phone? Yup. Does it require a Chromecast Ultra for higher resolutions and a higher speed internet connection (35 Mbit/s) to play on a TV? Definitely. But you can play on Stadia for less than a Nintendo Switch even if you add together the cost of a chromebook and an xbox game controller. Which is what I use on my laptop to play Stadia games.
- Traster 7y agoOkay, so you have a choice between a cheap Chromebook or an Xbox One at literally identical price points. Except the Xbox one actually comes with the xbox controller with games custom built to use the xbox controller.
- 72deluxe 7y agoAnd when you buy the games, you get to keep them! No risk of your xbox disappearing overnight after you go to bed, unlike cloud offerings.
- daemin 7y agoWell 10mbit is nice, until someone in the house starts streaming a video as well.
- p1necone 7y agoYes, I believe that's the point the poster is trying to make. The restrictions google is putting on the service currently aren't necessary, and are hurting the product.
- birdyrooster 7y agoIf Google is going to succeed it is going to do so by bringing tons of new people into video gaming who didn't have experience with the native hardware. With its added latency, vendor lock-in and Google-related privacy pitfalls, Stadia wasn't attractive enough for existing PC and Console gamers to switch in mass.
- icebraining 7y agoI mean, yeah, it would certainly be unique. But would it ever be sustainable? It basically requires them to pay for the ongoing costs of hardware+bandwidth for rendering and streaming, all for the store fee they get at the time of purchase (about $20 on a regular AAA game?).
- imtringued 7y agoIsn't there a conflict of interest? They want you to buy as many games as possible but play them as little as possible. This will mean that they will primarily allow short games on the platform. Something like Skyrim or Rimworld could be a guaranteed loss.