Despite everywhere you look there's always someone pointing to the Google Graveyard, the game streaming service Stadia is still soldiering on in the face of overwhelming competition.
In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Stadia's developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn says the service is actually "alive and well" and went on to mention how they have over 100 new titles launching for Stadia through 2021. They're also continuing to grow their Stadia Makers program where they help Unity developers port to Stadia (with another 20 coming from that) along with continuing partnerships with many AAA studios like Capcom, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others.
A while ago Google shut down the Stadia Games & Entertainment studio, which seemed like a bad sign. Following that, they lost key developers like Jade Raymond, John Justice and a bunch of other staff members recently who all joined Raymond's new Haven Studio. Were those all signs of a service in trouble? Not quite, it's pretty much just the tail-end of SG&E closing. Still, no big first-party exclusive games to pull people in isn't doing the service any favours.
Stadia, much like Linux desktop gaming, faces a huge uphill battle to actually win people over. The tech is there, it just needs a lot more games and people to actually use it. For Stadia especially, they have to fight off the upcoming Amazon Luna along with Xbox Cloud Gaming - both of which will give a much more Netflix-like subscription model rather than buying individual games. Then there's GeForce NOW giving access to existing libraries - how will Stadia continue to progress? That remains to be seen.
In other news, Stadia recently finally got a search bar and more UI changes planned.
Play Stadia on Linux on Stadia.com with a Chromium browser.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
So even though I'm excited seeing the tech I actually hope they won't succeed as I really don't want this sales model to take root.
hardpenguin May 14, 2021
Stadia could in theory carve itself a niche with games that exploit fully its cloud nature and the unique possibilities it offers. Kind of like Nintendo. But since they shut down their game studio I think they killed the only interesting thing they had to offer.
Perkeleen_Vittupää May 14, 2021
Quoting: hardpenguinI am afraid this is kind of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" reassurance... But the time will tell...
Reminds me of an (in)famous German phrase...
In 1961, the Whatevertheycalledhim of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, said: "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" ("Nobody plans to build a wall!") Time did tell. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhYIqiJlEA
sgtnasty369 May 14, 2021
The big hurdle, of course, is the time and money it takes to port games to Stadia, and then there's the danger of losing any game you've bought if Stadia goes under.
Last edited by melkemind on 14 May 2021 at 12:52 pm UTC
Mohandevir May 14, 2021
Quoting: PJHaving to buy something you actually rent is an awful idea.
I don't know why this false perception persists? You rent a PS Plus like game catalogue. I'm a Stadia user, you don' need the subscription to use Stadia or to buy games. I don't know why people keep saying this, it's just plain wrong.
It's a console, in the cloud. Think of it as a PS5 digital edition, but no hardware. Exactly the same economic model. It's a tried and tested model. Nothing new.
Where the debate may be open, it's on the subject of Google's integrity and reliabilty... This I won't argue, your gripes are legitimate. I have the same doubts, but they have a pretty neat piece of tech, with a lot of potential, imo.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 14 May 2021 at 1:31 pm UTC
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me