Google Announces Stadia — Its Cloud Gaming Platform
At the GDC 2019, Google unveiled its cloud gaming service — Stadia. Back in 2018, Google invited gamers to play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the latest in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, via Project Stream. Gamers could play the whole game, via a Chrome browser at any platform. The Project Stream ended in January 15, 2019 leaving the gaming world wondering, what Google’s next move will be.
At GDC 2019, Google showed the world what’s after Project Steam — Google Stadia.
Google Stadia will let gamers play AAA games with 4k graphics at 60 fps, on any device with an internet connection (with an expected bandwidth of 25 Mbps). When you are playing a game on Stadia you would essentially be streaming from Google’s Data Centres. Google has partnered with AMD to make a 10.7 teraflop GPU, which would be a big upgrade from PS4 Pro’s 4.2 teraflops and Xbox One X’s 6.0 teraflops.
You can initiate an instance of Stadia from your laptop, your mobile, tablet and from your TV (Chromecast). Google will also develop a controller called Stadia Controller, which would directly connect to the Google Data Centres (via WiFi), to give you minimum lag.
The Unique Position of Google Stadia
All of these things are fine, but the big part is the new social side of gaming that Stadia will bring in. Google has made YouTube a big part of pushing Stadia. Watching Gameplay on YouTube is a big industry. I’ve spent countless hours watching PES and FIFA gameplays. Stadia will let YouTube creators new tools to make the game viewing experience more immersive.
For example, Stadia will have a feature called “State Share”, which would let a gamer create a shareable gameplay moment. Any other player, can just click the link and a Stadia Instance will be loaded with the same inventory and game state as the sharer intended. This opens up a whole new level of social interaction.
Google Stadia will make sharing your gaming moments as easy as sharing a YouTube video
What does a future with Google Stadia look like?
Google isn’t the only company working on Cloud Gaming. Microsoft has its xCloud Gaming Service, Amazon might be working on something similar, along with Nvidia and Sony. However, Google seems to have the services and the networking infrastructure that might just make Stadia the front of the cloud gaming pack.
For the developers, Google will offer its strong machine learning capabilities. In fact, Stadia will have a Style Transfer ML, which can stylise a game, based on the input of an artwork. Developers won’t have to be limited by the specs of the console platform that they are developing the games for. Google’s Data Centre will be their platform when develop games for Stadia — and that would be a big big upgrade.
Multiplayer games will be at whole new level. Since, every player will be directly connected to the Stadia platform, there will be less back and forth and hence less lags. The scale of multiplayer games will also be multiplied. The battle royale games (like Fortnite and PUBG) which now have only 100s of players, will have 1000s of players.
The cross-platform advantage of Stadia will be its biggest selling point. You will play the same game on-the-go, from any device. For the in-home gaming, you can stream via Google Chromecast on your TV and play with the Stadia Controller, making it indistinguishable from a traditional console setup.
Stadia can do to Gaming what Netflix did to video content watching .
Netflix made DVD players obsolete, and Stadia might do the same to the Consoles.
What might go wrong with Stadia
Stadia can fail to emulate the success of video-streaming for one key reason — input lags.
The input lag will be the major issue that Stadia or any game streaming service has to deal with. A low latency network is not the same as console connected to the controller.
However, I think, that this is more of a “now” issue. Sure, when Netflix launched, streaming a 720p movie was a pain, depending on your network speeds. But in 2019, you cannot distinguish between the video playback of on Netflix from a traditional Blu-ray player.It’s a matter of a decade before which we make “low latency” to “no latency”.
Stadia will launch in “sometime” in 2019 in US, Canada, UK and Europe. Google has not said anything at the pricing model or how many games will be available at the launch. It is expected however, that will have a Netflix-like subscription model.
Stadia showcases what the future of gaming will look like. AAA (High graphics and immersive) Gaming would be more social, it won’t be limited to your living rooms. You would be able to ask Google Assistant “how to cross this level” without leaving the gameplay. You will be able to play the same game (not the toned down mobile version) on your smartphones and tablets and big screens.
However, the issue of input lag has to dealt with, and without it a Stadia game will never matchup with an Xbox or a PS4
