Google takes the wraps off its rumoured Stadia game-streaming service and a companion controller. HAYDEN DINGMAN reports
I t’s safe to say that going into GDC 2019, Google’s keynote was the most anticipated on the schedule. Rumours had flown for weeks, though calling them ‘rumours’ is perhaps underselling it. We knew Google was working on streaming games to the Chrome browser, after last year’s Project Stream tests, and it was clear we’d see more about those ideas.GDC was the official reveal, though. It’s called Stadia, and already the old box-under-the-television paradigm feels outdated.
Streaming games anywhere
‘Building a game platform for everyone.’ That’s the
tag line Google went with during its presentation.
You have a desktop? A laptop? A phone? Then you
have Stadia. It’s that easy. This is the future that
game streaming allows.
No, seriously: Google showed it to us. An onstage
demo went from laptop to phone to desktop to TV,
picking up and playing the same Assassin’s Creed:
Odyssey save file with mere seconds in-between
each platform. As long as you have Chrome and a
strong Internet connection, you’re ready for Stadia.
Google showed how someone could watch the
Odyssey trailer, click a ‘Play Now’ button below,
and within seconds start running around the game
– no need to install, no need for patches, none of
the pain points associated with modern gaming.
These aren’t new ideas, of course. OnLive tried
to do this a decade ago. Sony has been doing it with
PlayStation Now, too. But Google has a few advantages
– namely, a worldwide server infrastructure that
ensures you’re never too far from a data centre,
plus an install base that spans billions of devices.
And so Stadia is a step above what we’ve seen
from previous iterations of this concept. Last year’s
Project Stream tests were already impressive, allowing
you to play Odyssey at 1080p and 60 frames per
second (fps). Stadia will kick that up to 4K, and also
will stream HDR and surround sound data as well.
In theory it should be indistinguishable from playing
the game on a local machine.
Or better. And that’s the real promise of game
streaming, and the key to Google’s ‘Building a game
platform for everyone’ mantra. At the moment, a
high-end PC might run you £1,500 or more. With
Stadia, Google is doing the heavy lifting in its data
centre, which means you can – again, in theory
– experience maxed-out graphics even on your
phone or a cheap laptop. You can also stream to
YouTube in 4K, without any fancy capture cards.
Everyone’s running a top-tier PC with Stadia.
Developers are freed from the constraints of
traditional hardware as well. Google talked about the
potential for a thousand-person battle royale, once
you’re freed from local machines and local Internetconnections. It also talked about the potential for
couch co-op to return, now that developers aren’t
limited to running two compromised versions of a
game on the same console hardware.
And, of course, there are visual enhancements
to be explored. Microsoft had this idea years ago
– remember when Crackdown 3 was going to use
the power of Microsoft Azure to simulate citywide
destruction? Well, Google is talking about Stadia doing
the same, demonstrating realistic water simulations on
its platform versus a local machine. It’s impressive.
The problem with streaming is, as always, your
Internet connection. I live in a large city, and thus
don’t run into these issues often. We’re flush with
data centres, meaning latency to the server and
back is never too bad. I’m also lucky to have Gigabit
Internet at my flat as well. Stadia will probably work
great for me. But if you don’t live in a major urban
area? It’s harder to say how this will go. Google
talked up its infrastructure, and it is impressive: 19
regions, 58 zones, 200-plus countries, and 7,500
edge nodes. Chances are you aren’t too far away
from a Google server farm.
Stadia’s streaming nature means you’ll be
able to join queues to play against your favourite
YouTube streamers instantly, or send challenges to
your friends tied to specific save states.
Whether it will feel as immediate as playing on a
local machine, though? Whether you’ll be able to take
advantage of 4K and 60fps streaming, with HDR and
surround sound? Whether it’s good enough for a high-
level fighting game or first-person shooter play? Theseare important questions, and unfortunately ones we
won’t be able to answer until Stadia is out in the world.
Google did trot out id Software to say Doom Eternal
will come to Stadia, which is certainly promising, but
again, it depends on your home Internet connection.
Also, if (as I do) you have a data cap? This is all
a bit worrisome. I play hundreds of hours of games
every month, and streaming yet another form of
entertainment is going to put a lot of strain on my
limit. Unlike Steam’s streaming, there’s no option to
install a game if you want. You’re always streaming
it, and presumably copies sold through the Google
Play store won’t come with more traditional versions
from other storefronts. You’re either all-in on Stadia
and streaming or you’re not.
It’s pretty exciting, though. Provided it works,
it could shake up the entire industry in some
interesting ways. Already, the Microsoft/Sony/
Nintendo triumvirate seems threatened – though,
of course, Microsoft is set to reveal its own Project
xCloud streaming solution sometime soon, maybe
even as early as E3 in June.
There was more in the announcement. Stadia
doesn’t need any specific hardware, and you’re free
to use your existing mouse and keyboard or an Xbox
or PlayStation controller. Google is making a Stadia-
specific controller as well though, and it looks similar
to the mock-ups we saw floating around on Twitter –
which is to say, not the most comfortable. I’ll reserve
judgment until we’ve held one, though, as that’s
always hard to determine.
And Jade Raymond, VP and Head of Stadia Games
and Entertainment, came out onstage to say that
Google will be funding first-party games, meaning at
some point in the future we’ll see Stadia exclusives.
It’s not a console, but the console mentality is very
much alive. Most important, we got a ‘release date’.
Stadia is set to release in the US and most of Europe
sometime in 2019. It’s safe to assume that’s the back
half of 2019, as Google said we’d see more “this
summer”. There’s a good chance we’ll see Microsoft
and Google squaring off this holiday season, which
means the next generation is really on the horizon
– and looks a lot different than every generation to
date. Interesting times.
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