Google has officially announced that they will be joining the gaming scene. This means they’ll go up against the big three (PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo), however, Google will be bringing something new in a different way. During their press segment at the Game Developers Conference, they announced its new gaming platform called Stadia; it’s Google’s solution to the “next generation of gaming.” Unlike Google’s competitors, the Stadia does not come with the standard console hardware. This next generation of gaming from Google is all about streaming using a computer or devices that have access to Google.
During the conference, Vice President and General Manager for Google, Phil Harrison, (who previously worked for PlayStation as an Executive VP) brought an example of what to expect. Imagine watching a game trailer for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on Youtube … and at the end of the trailer a “play now” button would appear on the video. A person can simply click that button and begin playing the game in as little as five seconds. There is no downloading, no patches, no updates, and no installing involved; Stadia offers instant access to play video games. The second example that showed off what to expect from Stadia was being able to play on multiple devices by stopping on one and then continuing on another. In the demonstration, a person started playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on a Chromebook with the Google Chrome Browser, moved onto the Pixel Phone to continue playing where he left off, then onto a PC with low specs, continued to a tablet, and then finally moved to a TV using a Google Chromecast device. The transitions to each device looked seamless and will contain the same high quality gameplay without loss.
When the Stadia launches, it can provide gameplay graphics with up to 4K resolution with 60 fps that also offers HDR and surround sound support. It’s not stopping there as they will support games with 8K resolution and over 120 fps in the future. Tech spec wise, the Stadia will provide 10.7 GPU Teraflops as opposed to the previous generations of the PlayStation 4 Pro containing 4.2 GPU Teraflops and Xbox One X containing 6.0 GPU Teraflops. The Stadia will also have access to multiple GPU’s so developers are not locked into just one, if they need more graphical power.
Even though there is no console hardware for the Stadia, Google did announce that there is a controller for their service. It will connect through wifi directly to the device that is running through the game center. The controller looks to be a standard controller, but it contains two important buttons which are the Capture button and the Google Assist button. The Capture button will be used for sharing and saving the game experience back to YouTube. The Google Assistant button provides access to the built in microphone to get help from the Assistant for special in-game features integrated from the developers.
The Stadia is also thinking about content creators and keeping streamers in mind. They are innovating the streaming scene with Stream Connect, which is able to realize split-screen gameplay without any penalty to visuals thanks to the streaming capability. State Share can create moments that can be shared with others that has access to click a link to continue where you left off to beat a high score or even try a favorite moment you had in the game. Crowd Play showed a new lobby system that someone can join in on the creator’s game and others can jump into the queue to wait to play the next game with the creator. Battle Royale games can go from hundreds of players to even thousands of players with no cheating or hacking thanks to streaming.
Stadia looks to be an amazing leap of innovation brought to the gamers by Google. Google is truly trying to build a game platform for everyone on devices you already have. Of course, there are some speculations on how this all works when it launches later this year. How much will this service cost? Is this a streaming service where you pay monthly or is it just a game purchase? What are the certain requirements to play? The Stadia will be launching in 2019 with more details to come. You can expect more coverage and information to arise during the summer.
