Google Stadia General Discussion - Like any other gaming platform, but worse.

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I'm all for big tech companies and mega-corps making mistakes that lose them billions
 
I know its been discussed to death, but this is a console for literally nobody. People who are stupid enough to buy games on the cloud aren't going to want to game on the cloud. Casual gamers don't even know what a controller looks like. Hardcore gamers want a comfy home experience and will use a Switch or gaming Laptop while on the road. People with massive libraries of games (such as myself) are not going to rebuy things because we simply can't afford to, and why bother? If I'm on the road, I'm not really interested in gaming. So the point of playing anywhere is useless to me.
 
Considering how Alphabet, Inc invested in this stupid thing, sdfsd.jpg ( https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/1/16243356/juicero-shut-down-lay-off-refund ) I'm looking forward to seeing Stadia crash and burn! :story:
 
I know its been discussed to death, but this is a console for literally nobody. People who are stupid enough to buy games on the cloud aren't going to want to game on the cloud. Casual gamers don't even know what a controller looks like. Hardcore gamers want a comfy home experience and will use a Switch or gaming Laptop while on the road. People with massive libraries of games (such as myself) are not going to rebuy things because we simply can't afford to, and why bother? If I'm on the road, I'm not really interested in gaming. So the point of playing anywhere is useless to me.

Even if you really wanted to game on the road/traveling, you could just access your existing steam library remotely - either directly through a steam install or through a stream link device.
 
Even if you really wanted to game on the road/traveling, you could just access your existing steam library remotely - either directly through a steam install or through a stream link device.

Not even that. If you leave your main rig on and have an internet connection, you install a driver on your main rig and you can stream your library from your rig to your laptop. There is literally no need for a Stadia. I get notifications all the time that my main computer is ready for streaming if I power up my laptop to do work on it.
 
It really is for literally nobody. I'm even well prepared for it - I own a Chromecast and have a reasonably solid fiber connection, I own a lot of controllers, and I visit my parents (who also own a Chromecast) enough to where Stadia would be convenient for me, if I were playing something lengthy enough that I'd want to play it while I'm over there too.

But I'd still prefer to just keep bringing my Switch over. I've got a little USB-C to HDMI adapter (Nexjack branded) and an AC adapter that doesn't take up much room that I use in place of the dock, all of my games run locally, and I can have a library of physical cartridges I can trade/lend/sell whenever I want, without some inevitable demise date always looming on the horizon. The Stadia needs to be a better experience than the Switch in order to get me to use it, but it looks like I can't even try it out without buying something. Shit, Epic's as incompetent as they come, but even they know the importance of giving your players plenty to try out, to help get their store integrated into their gaming routines. Is anyone surprised that the clueless, rich Google executives would be surprised that having their users cough up $60 per game would be a lot to ask?

If they hand out free games for people who already own a Chromecast and check it out within the first week, I'll give Stadia a shot and write a review. Convenience for Chromecast users is the one sole benefit they have, but as for me, it's a negligible amount of convenience when I'm already in the flow of just bringing my Switch along, the few times I do actually wanna play my own video games when I'm away from home.

Stadia is just such a great example of a solution looking for a problem. The ability to hop from your TV, to your phone, to your computer, to your parents' TV while not even having to shut down the game sounds great to anyone who doesn't actually play video games. But in practice? I hope you have a lot of different controllers, because trying to use anything Bluetooth with more than one device is a colossal pain in the ass - just ask anyone who wears Bluetooth headphones. Playing any controller-based games on your phone is almost out of the question for a multitude of reasons, and I don't think I've ever found myself in a situation where I absolutely had to move to a different screen somewhere mid-game, and didn't have the time to save, quit, and then restart the game elsewhere.

Google should cancel the entire project and redirect their resources into developing a version of Bluetooth where you can sync shit to more than one thing at a time. I'm typing all of this up on my Bluetooth keyboard, and as much as I like this keyboard, I never use it on anything else from just the sheer hassle of resyncing it.

Stadia is the modern Ouya, except this time, without a slew of nerds swearing that it'll be the next major console and that Indies will rise up to tear down Sony and Microsoft. Every single thing about this stupid platform is awful, and I can't wait to watch this stupid thing fall flat on its face. I didn't think much of Ouya from the start, but even that had a lot more appeal than freaking Stadia. You could at least use an Ouya as a weak emulation machine. The concept of an Android-based console isn't even that bad, as proven by the NVidia Shield. The Stadia just doesn't have a purpose, full stop.

I don't even think Google has any fanboys anymore, aside from Silicon Valley soyboys angling for a job there. They've become such a necessary evil, and I'm saying that as someone who thought Google could do no wrong ten years ago. They've long since lost the public's trust, and now they're trying to sell a service to a relatively tech-savvy community that has their heels dug deep into the creature comforts of their favorite platforms, which Stadia just can't provide. Those of us who discuss games on forums are pretty deep into the hobby and likely have collections on all kinds of platforms, but I think most people just stick to either PC, Xbox/PS, Nintendo, or mobile. Stadia doesn't really comfortably fit into any of those categories. The use cases where Stadia would be the best option are so contrived and specific that I'd be shocked if the platform were anything more than a laughing stock.

That being said, the outrage surrounding Stadia if they started snapping up exclusives, Epic style, would be priceless. Google's got the cash for it, too. Imagine if Street Fighter VI or a new Marvel vs. Capcom game were exclusive to Stadia. The jimmies that would be rustled would be unlike any other ever seen by mankind.
 
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It really is for literally nobody. I'm even well prepared for it - I own a Chromecast and have a reasonably solid fiber connection, I own a lot of controllers, and I visit my parents (who also own a Chromecast) enough to where Stadia would be convenient for me, if I were playing something lengthy enough that I'd want to play it while I'm over there too.

But I'd still prefer to just keep bringing my Switch over. I've got a little USB-C to HDMI adapter (Nexjack branded) and an AC adapter that doesn't take up much room that I use in place of the dock, all of my games run locally, and I can have a library of physical cartridges I can trade/lend/sell whenever I want, without some inevitable demise date always looming on the horizon. The Stadia needs to be a better experience than the Switch in order to get me to use it, but it looks like I can't even try it out without buying something. Shit, Epic's as incompetent as they come, but even they know the importance of giving your players plenty to try out, to help get their store integrated into their gaming routines. Is anyone surprised that the clueless, rich Google executives would be surprised that having their users cough up $60 per game would be a lot to ask?

If they hand out free games for people who already own a Chromecast and check it out within the first week, I'll give Stadia a shot and write a review. Convenience for Chromecast users is the one sole benefit they have, but as for me, it's a negligible amount of convenience when I'm already in the flow of just bringing my Switch along, the few times I do actually wanna play my own video games when I'm away from home.

Stadia is just such a great example of a solution looking for a problem. The ability to hop from your TV, to your phone, to your computer, to your parents' TV while not even having to shut down the game sounds great to anyone who doesn't actually play video games. But in practice? I hope you have a lot of different controllers, because trying to use anything Bluetooth with more than one device is a colossal pain in the ass - just ask anyone who wears Bluetooth headphones. Playing any controller-based games on your phone is almost out of the question for a multitude of reasons, and I don't think I've ever found myself in a situation where I absolutely had to move to a different screen somewhere mid-game, and didn't have the time to save, quit, and then restart the game elsewhere.

Google should cancel the entire project and redirect their resources into developing a version of Bluetooth where you can sync shit to more than one thing at a time. I'm typing all of this up on my Bluetooth keyboard, and as much as I like this keyboard, I never use it on anything else from just the sheer hassle of resyncing it.

Stadia is the modern Ouya, except this time, without a slew of faggot nerds swearing that it'll be the next major console and that Indies will rise up to tear down Sony and Microsoft. Every single thing about this stupid platform is awful, and I can't wait to watch this stupid thing fall flat on its face. I didn't think much of Ouya from the start, but even that had a lot more appeal than freaking Stadia. You could at least use an Ouya as a weak emulation machine. The concept of an Android-based console isn't even that bad, as proven by the NVidia Shield. The Stadia just doesn't have a purpose, full stop.

I don't even think Google has any fanboys anymore, aside from Silicon Valley soyboys angling for a job there. They've become such a necessary evil, and I'm saying that as someone who thought Google could do no wrong ten years ago. They've long since lost the public's trust, and now they're trying to sell a service to a relatively tech-savvy community that has their heels dug deep into the creature comforts of their favorite platforms, which Stadia just can't provide. Those of us who discuss games on forums are pretty deep into the hobby and likely have collections on all kinds of platforms, but I think most people just stick to either PC, Xbox/PS, Nintendo, or mobile. Stadia doesn't really comfortably fit into any of those categories. The use cases where Stadia would be the best option are so contrived and specific that I'd be shocked if the platform were anything more than a laughing stock.

That being said, the outrage surrounding Stadia if they started snapping up exclusives, Epic style, would be priceless. Google's got the cash for it, too. Imagine if Street Fighter VI or a new Marvel vs. Capcom game were exclusive to Stadia. The jimmies that would be rustled would be unlike any other ever seen by mankind.
The FGC wouldn’t tolerate it. They’re autistic as fuck, rightfully so, about input latency in their games. They will not do cloud gaming.
 
I think there's another layer to this. Google Stadia, at its heart, will involve putting large amounts of computational power at the edge of the network. As demand for streaming will be predominantly weekends and evenings, this leaves Google with large numbers of GPUs and CPUs idle.

If they use GCP to leverage this idle capability, Google can effectively use gamers to double dip on their investment. They can also use the gaming use case to pressuring and persuade ISP's into running these power and bandwidth hungry boxes inside their networks - which they wouldn't do otherwise.

This leaves Google in an incredibly desirable position - plenty of compute very close to the user. This is effectively the wet dream of every cloud provider - perfect for CDN, machine learning, and IoT data processing.

I suspect Stadia will fail, but I don't think the hardware approach is going away any time soon. Even if they have to do it some other way, the idea of so much local, low latency compute is too attractive to ignore.
 
That being said, the outrage surrounding Stadia if they started snapping up exclusives, Epic style, would be priceless. Google's got the cash for it, too. Imagine if Street Fighter VI or a new Marvel vs. Capcom game were exclusive to Stadia. The jimmies that would be rustled would be unlike any other ever seen by mankind.

Marvel vs Capcom is the Mass effect of the Fighting games and if they release a new game, they wouldn't being so stupid to be an exclusives with arc system's tag games being in all console.
Same with SFVI ,they have arc system and NRS to worry about (plus SNK becoming more stable and french bread becoming more well known).
 
That being said, the outrage surrounding Stadia if they started snapping up exclusives, Epic style, would be priceless. Google's got the cash for it, too. Imagine if Street Fighter VI or a new Marvel vs. Capcom game were exclusive to Stadia. The jimmies that would be rustled would be unlike any other ever seen by mankind.

There would only be outrage if the new MvC or Street Fighter game was any good - going off of the last few capcom fighters (SF 5, MVC:Infinite, Street Fighter x Tekken, MVC:3, SF 4) it probably wouldn't drum up any outrage.

Epic has enough cash to buy exclusives, but Google has enough cash to buy full on game studios, Microsoft Style. The real outrage would be if they bought some studios (like Capcom) in 2020 only to gut them in 2025 once they give up on trying to make the Staida "a thing" in gaming.
 
That being said, the outrage surrounding Stadia if they started snapping up exclusives, Epic style, would be priceless. Google's got the cash for it, too. Imagine if Street Fighter VI or a new Marvel vs. Capcom game were exclusive to Stadia. The jimmies that would be rustled would be unlike any other ever seen by mankind.
Orcs Must Die 3 is a Stadia exclusive and that slightly irritates me since I liked playing them with friends
https://www.gameinformer.com/gamesc...-3-heading-to-stadia-as-a-platform-exclusive/
(Links to the announcement/articles for those who didn't wanna go searching for it.)

*sigh*

You just had to jinx it didn't ya, Piss?
 
https://www.gameinformer.com/gamesc...-3-heading-to-stadia-as-a-platform-exclusive/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TpaOvMK5KYU(Links to the announcement/articles for those who didn't wanna go searching for it.)

*sigh*

You just had to jinx it didn't ya, Piss?

That's sad for the exclusivity, but it's hilarious because fucking press "F" to pay respects to Epic Games Store.

All they had was shitty exclusivity deals, but now that people know that Google is cutting checks? Good luck lmao.
 
https://www.gameinformer.com/gamesc...-3-heading-to-stadia-as-a-platform-exclusive/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TpaOvMK5KYU(Links to the announcement/articles for those who didn't wanna go searching for it.)

*sigh*

You just had to jinx it didn't ya, Piss?
What a weird game to steal as an exclusive. Isn't that series sort of a cult hit? I figured they'd buy up some AAA schlock, at least.

Well, let's hope that's a timed exclusive. It'll be interesting to see how that game does on Stadia, considering Orcs Must Die is practically nonexistent outside of the PC. A quick search shows me that the first one's on 360 & Xbone, and there was a freemium thing on PC & PS4 I never knew about that's already dead. I still haven't figured out who exactly Stadia is designed for - people who used to play games and would like to get back into it just now, but only have a Chromecast and an ultrabook? And somehow live a life where a PS4, Xbox One, or even a Nintendo Switch is too inconvenient for them? But know about PC games well enough that Orcs Must Die carries brand recognition for them?

That's sad for the exclusivity, but it's hilarious because fucking press "F" to pay respects to Epic Games Store.

All they had was shitty exclusivity deals, but now that people know that Google is cutting checks? Good luck lmao.

Ain't karma a bitch?
 
That's sad for the exclusivity, but it's hilarious because fucking press "F" to pay respects to Epic Games Store.

All they had was shitty exclusivity deals, but now that people know that Google is cutting checks? Good luck lmao.

I mean, they could always try to outbid Google.

...It won't work, and is the definition of a fool's errand, but it'd be funny to see them try.

What a weird game to steal as an exclusive. Isn't that series sort of a cult hit? I figured they'd buy up some AAA schlock, at least.

Well, let's hope that's a timed exclusive. It'll be interesting to see how that game does on Stadia, considering Orcs Must Die is practically nonexistent outside of the PC. A quick search shows me that the first one's on 360 & Xbone, and there was a freemium thing on PC & PS4 I never knew about that's already dead. I still haven't figured out who exactly Stadia is designed for - people who used to play games and would like to get back into it just now, but only have a Chromecast and an ultrabook? And somehow live a life where a PS4, Xbox One, or even a Nintendo Switch is too inconvenient for them? But know about PC games well enough that Orcs Must Die carries brand recognition for them?

AFAIK, and as far as other articles have shown, it's a permanent Stadia exclusive. Sort of akin to PlayStation/Xbox exclusives, only using Epic's tactics of "buy out when it's finished through large wads of cash, and fuck every other platform".
 
What a weird game to steal as an exclusive. Isn't that series sort of a cult hit? I figured they'd buy up some AAA schlock, at least.
Yeah, OMD is very much a cult series and I am a big fan of it myself. 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games and I even tried the f2p abomination which says a lot because I tend to just ignore f2p games. Hope they got a good paycheck because I certainly won't be trying this game out unless I can get it free somehow.

I have absolutely no interest in spending money on a game that I might just lose access to randomly one day with no warning.
 
AFAIK, and as far as other articles have shown, it's a permanent Stadia exclusive. Sort of akin to PlayStation/Xbox exclusives, only using Epic's tactics of "buy out when it's finished through large wads of cash, and fuck every other platform".

From a preservationist's standpoint, a perpetual Stadia exclusive is one of the worst possible things that can happen. There's no way the game can be playable after its EOL'd unless a build of it gets stolen and leaked out, and even then, it might have to be heavily modded to be playable on standard PCs. There's no need for them to work on getting it to run on lower end hardware, they could develop it to need astronomical system requirements since that just won't be an issue. I'd imagine it'll be a lot like trying to get modern arcade games to run on home computers - most new arcade games these days run on low-end desktop PCs, running in either Windows or some custom build of Linux (but usually Windows). The problem is, those games were designed for precisely one type of PC, with one particular kind of video card, and a lot of other proprietary devices it expects - everything from NFC readers to I/O boards (R.I.P. J.A.M.M.A.). And if that shit's tricky to deal with, imagine what Google's cooked up.

I think there's another layer to this. Google Stadia, at its heart, will involve putting large amounts of computational power at the edge of the network. As demand for streaming will be predominantly weekends and evenings, this leaves Google with large numbers of GPUs and CPUs idle.

If they use GCP to leverage this idle capability, Google can effectively use gamers to double dip on their investment. They can also use the gaming use case to pressuring and persuade ISP's into running these power and bandwidth hungry boxes inside their networks - which they wouldn't do otherwise.

This leaves Google in an incredibly desirable position - plenty of compute very close to the user. This is effectively the wet dream of every cloud provider - perfect for CDN, machine learning, and IoT data processing.

I suspect Stadia will fail, but I don't think the hardware approach is going away any time soon. Even if they have to do it some other way, the idea of so much local, low latency compute is too attractive to ignore.
That really does make a lot of sense. Stadia's the perfect way to slip in extremely powerful server farms into every city. I'd really like to know exactly what the fuck they're planning.
 
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