Today, the Google Stadia streaming service officially launched for those who picked up the Founder or Premier Edition.
Well, sort of anyway. Some people have it, a lot of people don't, we certainly don't and it appears the team at Stadia give different answers to different people on when you will actually be able to access it. I've also seen plenty of people whose orders have been cancelled without warning or explanation. Even worse still, some people have been sent their hardware without an access code. Google have, so far, done a terrible job at communicating on Stadia and so the initial launch doesn't seem to have gone down well at all.
Oh, they also have the most ridiculous launch trailer I've ever seen:
Direct Link
The more I think about it, the more amazed I am at just how badly this has been managed. Take a look at the actual proper Stadia website for example, there's not a contact or support link in sight.
So they originally had a tiny lineup, then did a Reddit AMA where they said a bunch of the hooks they used to get people in weren't actually ready at all and hastily announced a few more games just before release. Nothing about it has so far looked like they've been in any way prepared to launch a gaming service.
One thing that I've seen confirmed now, as many suspected, is that input lag does seem to be a real problem. Google talked big about their powerful hardware and everything they were doing to bring it down, but it seems they haven't solved anything at all so far. Looking at the Eurogamer article, the input lag table included was quite impressive. This video from The Post also makes it look pretty awful.
From what Jason Schreier of Kotaku said on Twitter from "one person involved" that "preorders were below expectations". I really can't get my head around that. Somehow, they didn't get as many preorders as they had hoped and simultaneously failed to get them into the hands of people who did buy into it early. Words are honestly failing me right now. Incredible.
Eventually, at some point we will get access to it to report on how it works when played on a Linux desktop. When that is, I can't tell you, Google can't either. We're playing delivery bingo right now.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
kellerkindt Nov 19, 2019
One can have dreams, okay :P
I'll take the many reports with a big grain of salt.
They are too diverging anyway.
Let's wait and see for yourself.
I'm pretty sure we'll get are totally objective review by you. ;)
Quoting: subI'm pretty sure we'll get are totally objective review by you. ;)Of course, regardless of if we pay for it or we're given it, we say what we think. If it works fine in my own testing, I will say so. If it doesn't, I will also say so. If sometimes it does and others not...you get the idea.
Doc Angelo Nov 19, 2019
However, Google indeed did fuck up in a lot of ways. The whole communication of what Stadia is was done really poor, that there's only 1 single title in the subscription is ridiculous, and the selection of titles is rather sparse. That they don't get the features in time for release is on top of that.
Kimyrielle Nov 20, 2019
Quoting: subI somehow get the feeling there are many different stakeholders that just don't want to see this thing to be successful.
I am one of them. I want it to fail and fail hard. Because I don't like monopolies. We all know how this is going to end, right? Right now, Stadia is (or rather, wants to be) the Netflix of gaming. Then the big studios (ahem EA, Ubisoft, MS etc), will do the same thing the big content creators did to Netflix: Declaring 100% of their own content "exclusive" to their own streaming platforms. Google will react to that by tossing big bucks at developing their own exclusive stuff, because they can and want to stay in business. And now players will have to pay $$$ a month to 5-6 different platforms to get access to a halfway comprehensive library of games. The publishers will laugh at how we're now spending three times more money on gaming than in the olden days, when people used to buy good games in Steam sales, and laugh even harder at how they can dictate both prices and terms consumes without them having the slightest chance to do anything about it.
Brave new world.
...and I haven't even started to point out how ridiculous it is to produce multi-Gigabyte loads on your home internet per hour just to download pre-rendered sceens that a $400 GPU could render locally.
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 20 November 2019 at 12:02 am UTC
I mean, Stadia can't be worse than other streaming services that are working fairly well (can't it?)
Take GeForce Now for example, I have a beta tester key (or whatever is called) and I must say the experience is pretty good. Sucks that isn't available for Linux, but it does work. Definitely it won't satisfy everyone though, that's for sure.
For casuals like me, OTOH, is just fine.
Here's a small video recording showing what to expect from Geforce Now (and I expect at least that level of performance from Stadia).
Keep an eye on the bottom left corners where there's an input indicator, so you can approximate the lag involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0-3GtNiAoI
Oh, the stream quality is also excellent, whatever artifacts you see are Youtube's doing.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 20 November 2019 at 9:23 am UTC
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me