Game streaming
Is Google's new Stadia service worth signing up for?
Google Stadia is the name of both a new game-streaming service from Google as well as the name of the storefront from which you’ll buy games. Anything you buy is yours to keep, but you’ll likely be paying full price for all the games you’ll find on the
Stadia store.
What Stadia promises (and mostly delivers) is a gamestreaming experience that only requires the most basic of equipment: a Chromecast Ultra or your phone or your laptop, plus a controller of your choosing - either Google’s own Stadia Controller, the Xbox One controller or the PS4’s DualShock4 gamepad.
Last but not least you need a connection to the internet, something we thought would be an early nail in the platform’s coffin considering how few of us have fibre connections. That being said, Google Stadia works on 10Mbps connections and only requires 35Mbps for full 4K HDR/60fps.
There’s also the black sheep requirement: a Stadia Pro subscription. Now, at some point, you won’t need Stadia Pro to play games on the service: Sometime in 2020, you’ll be able to buy games on Stadia and play them on any supported device without any subscription.
Unfortunately, right out of the gate, you’ll need Stadia Pro - a monthly subscription that enables you to play games in 4K HDR quality, gets one or two free
What Stadia promises (and mostly delivers) is a game-streaming experience that only requires the most basic of equipment.
games for you at launch and offers you a discount when buying some games. But, importantly, despite what its name implies, Stadia Pro isn’t Netflix and it’s not an all-you-can-eat buffet of games.
Which devices support it?
Both the signup and streaming service are activated through the Google Stadia app on Android and iOS. Once you’re logged in, you can then either Cast a game from the app to your
Chromecast Ultra that comes with either of the two editions or go to Stadia.com to start streaming to your PC.
The third option, and the one that’s a bit trickier, is that you can connect a Stadia Controller to a Google Pixel 3, Google Pixel 3a or Google Pixel 4 phone, and stream directly to your phone. Try to stream on any other phone and the app will either ask you to connect to Chromecast Ultra or reinforce the three main entry points with a wall of explainer text.
Stadia content
Stadia is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to game selection. There’s some really good stuff - like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Mortal Kombat 11 - plus some games that are probably less appealing to folks like Just Dance 2020.
Stadia has a single exclusive in its collection so far, a child’s first horror game called GYLT, and in the future the service will play host to some highly anticipated titles like Watch Dogs Legion, Baldur’s Gate 3, Marvel’s Avengers and Cyberpunk 2077.
Originally Google Stadia was supposed to release with 12 games but one day before launch, that number nearly doubled to 22 games with one extra game, Samurai Showdown, available for free for Stadia Pro subscribers.
Now, that last minute addition of 10 games goes to show you what Google can do - namely, it can, at a whim, optimise and launch a whole bunch of games for the service. It’s a bold move that shows us that the service can update itself regularly with new games.
Design and interface
Stadia’s design and interface are brilliant and drop-dead simple to use. On both mobile and desktop, your home screen is essentially all the games you have in your collection with the top-most game the game that you played last.
On desktop you’ll have the option to find friends and add them to a party, as well as access your screenshot collection with photos of games you’ve taken. The mobile layout has a similar home screen, but also has tabs for the Stadia Store and a feed with videos, news and blog posts from the Stadia team.
One argument you could make against the service is that there’s not a lot of depth here compared to, say, the Xbox One’s multifaceted interface or even the Steam Store’s complex, curated and very robust app. The counter argument, though, is that Google didn’t overcomplicate something that should be simple, and can always add more complexity and depth to the apps as more content becomes available.
Features
Neither Google Assistant support nor direct streaming to YouTube via YouTube Gaming were available last week for us to try. Bummer.
So how soon will we get these features? Google unfortunately hasn’t given us a timeline for Google Assistant support, and it seems likely that it will be one of the last things added to the service. Direct streaming to YouTube, we expect, will launch much sooner as seeing streamers on Stadia will likely encourage gamers to sign up for the service.
The other missing feature folks might remember from Stadia’s announcement was the YouTubeStadia crossover feature that allows you to see a game on
YouTube, click a link, and have the game start on Stadia. That’s still in development, surely, but it might not be here anytime in the next few months.
That said, what Stadia does offer right out of the box is screen capture, a useful feature in the social media age, and a Friends List… which is nice if you want to party up with friends to play Destiny. There’s also cross-save in the case of Destiny, but not crossplay yet.
Arguably the two most important features at launch are Controller support - which again, works wonderfully - and seamless transfer between platforms.
Of course, all of this depends on the service coming to Australia, which is very much a ‘to be confirmed’ eventuality at this point - and our rather less than stellar broadband speeds will not make it the killer app it appears to be in countries with faster and more reliable connections.
But, as a model for what game streaming can be, it’s worth taking note of.
If you pay for 100Mbps internet speeds, Google Stadia will perform wonderfully and is the game-streaming service we’ve long waited for.
Nick Pino