On Google Stadia

GDC 2019 Google introduced the Stadia. A unified platform for gaming that runs on any device — your laptop, mobile phone, TV— anything that runs chrome. Think of your favorite AAA title. Now imagine playing it on your phone. At 1080p. At 60fps. And with the graphics maxed out. Your games anywhere without compromise. This is the Stadia promise.

Tip of the hat for Google’s bold move to build a compute farm with custom GPUs that out performs the latest PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Giving developers more hardware and breaking free from the limitations placed on by the user’s device is key unleash their creativity. Google is definitely heading down the correct direction.

Underneath, the biggest technology breakthrough got little coverage. Google figured out how to compress streaming 1080p 60fps videos with sub milliseconds latency. This is a game changer and this may change gaming requirements as we know it.

Realtime streaming of game on another device is not new. Sony’s Playstation has had Remote Play for years. The product’s launch dates back to 2006. 13 years later, clearly, the technology did not catch on. As much as I loved the concept, I believe, the root cause for its failure was the amount of compromises you needed to undertake to make the technology work. In its original form, the PS3 and PSP needed to be on the same network. The PS3 must be on and running the game. My PSP could only work as the receiving side. The video feed lagged and the compression artifacts was clearly visible. To top it off, the input lag was like playing an online game on dial up.

Stadia has these issues fixed. Using the same technology to deliver 4k+ videos and live stream on YouTube, delivering the game video stream is solved. And on any device. Encode streams in realtime with minimal artifacts looks to be solved. (I bet they have a ML-based method to accelerate the encoding process.) And to circumvent input lag, the controller will talk directly to Google’s servers. Creating an experience like playing a game rendered on device.

Stadia is Remote Play without compromises.

Now, can Google get pricing right to pull in the publishers ?