Google Reveals Stadia Launch Lineup of 12 Games (extremetech.com) 62
As we approach the November 19th launch date of Stadia, Google has revealed there will be just 12 games available to start. ExtremeTech reports: Stadia is similar to GeForce Now and Microsoft's upcoming xCloud service. Instead of downloading a game or buying a physical copy, Stadia renders the games on a Google server and streams the video down to your devices. Companies have been trying to figure this out for almost a decade, ever since OnLive began offering cloud gaming services in 2010. Even if Stadia works perfectly, it won't matter if it lacks content. The initial launch lineup has a little of everything, but the emphasis is on little. Here's the list of games you'll be able to buy on November 19th: Assassin's Creed Odyssey; Destiny 2: The Collection; GYLT; Just Dance 2020; Kine; Mortal Kombat 11; Red Dead Redemption 2; Rise of the Tomb Raider; SAMURAI SHODOWN; Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition; Thumper; and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
Google has, of course, announced other games for Stadia. Anything previously announced like Darksiders Genesis and Borderlands 3 will come later. Google promises the latter will launch on Stadia in 2019 along with more titles like Rage 2, Grid, and Metro Exodus. Stadia launches on November 19th exclusively for players who ordered the Founder's Edition starter kit. That comes with three months of Stadia Pro ($10 per month after), a limited edition controller, a Chromecast Ultra, and a copy of Destiny 2. The base version of Stadia, which lacks 4K support will be available early next year. That one doesn't include a monthly fee, but you still have to pay for the games.
Google has, of course, announced other games for Stadia. Anything previously announced like Darksiders Genesis and Borderlands 3 will come later. Google promises the latter will launch on Stadia in 2019 along with more titles like Rage 2, Grid, and Metro Exodus. Stadia launches on November 19th exclusively for players who ordered the Founder's Edition starter kit. That comes with three months of Stadia Pro ($10 per month after), a limited edition controller, a Chromecast Ultra, and a copy of Destiny 2. The base version of Stadia, which lacks 4K support will be available early next year. That one doesn't include a monthly fee, but you still have to pay for the games.
How is this going to work? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the list of games you'll be able to buy on November 19th:
Buy? Will I get a physical copy? How will I be able to access my "purchased" copy when this service inevitable folds?
These questions are rhetorical. You aren't buying shit.
Re: How is this going to work? (Score:3)
Re: How is this going to work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as owning an expensive pony. You pay for the pony, and it lives on a farm somewhere, and when you want to ride it, you're allowed to visit and feed it a carrot. Except you don't visit physically; you call it and choose what to feed it, and listen to it munching. Then you pay another fee for its agistment, and hope that the farm doesn't just cease to exist one day.
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Talking about ponies. As a gamer I use a wired mouse and keyboard because I can not tolerate the response loss for a wireless mouse and keyboard, that extra processing. It's like the googlite minions SJFs (social justice freaks) just do not get video gaming at all.
Zero caching possible, any interruption in the internet for a second or a minute and well, tough luck for happened to your place in the game at that time.
The whole concept is idiotic, computer power is getting cheaper and cheaper and now you can
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You must have much better reflexes than me. I have a wired Razer Taipa and a wireless Logitech G502 Lightspeed. Once I increased the polling rate of the USB port, the difference between the response times of the two mice is between 1 and 2ms.
My reaction times are not what they were in the 90s, when I qualified for the VF2 world finals, and when I could time my button presses down to an exact frame. But even then, I doubt 2ms would have made a difference.
Yes, there are slow wireless mice. But a good wire
Not target audience (Score:2)
You're not exactly the target audience for Google and co.
The "31337" gamers are still going to build 10k EUR monster-machine with fucking insane specs for their gaming needs. that they are probably going to wheel into big sponsored event where there are local servers on the LAN for competitive play.
The target audience is the big masses of people not interested into burning that money into a dream machine, and would be interested instead of paying a fee and playing recent games.
Basically, you're the guy with
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I don't disagree much, other than to say Joe 6-pack may buy into Stadia, but he'll likely not enjoy the experience much for reasons that he can't particularly name and go do something else. Where if he bought a PS4 he would maybe enjoy it more and buy a handful of games a year or so.
My point is that Stadia will probably do more damage to the casual gaming market for Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo whilst making not very much money for themselves.
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The casual market is completely used to lag. I'm willing to bet most of the man-hours spent on gaming in 2018 were on a shitty LCD that lags like crazy. The market at large has picked "picture quality" (resolution) over latency every time. That is essentially the same tradeoff you get with the remote gaming services. Extreme rendering power for the graphics, but added latency for it to get to you.
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It's sheer greed alright. But I'm not sure it ignores reality. The reality I've seen shows most people willingly surrendering everything they own, then paying a company to rent it back to them. Or at least enough of them to make it a success.
You say they "don't get" gaming, but it looks like they understand the market pretty well to me. They're aiming at the Angry Birds segment, not the Call of Duty segment. It sounds like your real complaint is that they don't cater to your market.
The concept is idiotic an
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Not for 1080p (Non "Pro" tier). "Pro" is $10/month for 4K/HDR, along with some not very-well-specified time-varying "included" games, and some not-at-all specified discounts for "purchasing" games and add-ons. The promise that you can play "purchased" games at 1080p for free lasts as long as Google continues to promise, just as anything you've ever gotten for free. They're also promising that "purchased" add-ons to "included" games are "restored" if you resume the $10/month payment. Need I put "promised"
Re: How is this going to work? (Score:2)
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I was in the beta, ran it from my 11 inch Acer chromebook from 2013 (maybe 2014?) Acer C720, which is about as modest a "laptop" as it's possible to find. Had it paired with a bluetooth capable Xbox One controller which worked natively (the game recognized it and would show the appropriate buttons on screen). Put about 60 hours on the game and it rarely ever had issues (occasionally when my AC kicked on I would get blocky frames for a second).
This was with a 30mbit home internet connection and I think arou
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I could live with that. I want to play Mario Maker 2 but it's not worth buying a Switch just for one game.
If I could pay say 5 bucks to play it for a month on a service like this, and they made sure to keep my save data even in months I didn't renew the subscription, I'd definitely consider it. Of course it would have to be lag free which could be challenging for a game like Mario.
and how long will an purchased game be live? (Score:4, Insightful)
and how long will an purchased game be live?
I'm sorry but we can't offer madden 2020 any more take this 10% discount on madden 2021
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Exactly. It's been well-established that many games must be discontinued on a given date due to the expiration of property licensing. The platform doesn't have to go bankrupt or otherwise get shut down for things to disappear.
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24/7 datacentres that are over-provisioned for peak demand is better for the environment than shipping some plastic boxes around the world? A spinning HD for a year will cost in electricity what a single game is at retail and that game has to include all of its costs AND a profit margin. And while those boxes are sitting on my shelf next to an OFF console there's no further energy cost. And by the time I have 10 years of games, this datacentre will have had to replace that 1 HD with 10 years of games worth
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You're comparing the impact of a single customer to the impact of thousands of customers. 1 HDD spinning at the data center doesn't mean 1 less DVD in circulation. It means 10,000 less DVDs in circulation. You may want to redo your calculations to take that into account - it sounds pretty major.
If you want to talk about the environment, it's also critical to understand the difference between point-source and non-point-source pollution. Particularly, one of those is much easier to clean up. (tldr: Ke
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They gave everyone who participated in the beta a copy of Assassin's Creed Odyssey on Origin. So if they stick to that model, they will provide you a key for installing a local copy of the game via one of the other services.
So in order to lose access to your game, both services would need to fail.
It's not ideal, but it's not bad either. I made a deal with myself awhile ago, I wouldn't buy digital media unless it was cheap enough that I would consider it disposable/temporary. So I wouldn't buy a $60 game a
Stadia opens this month ... (Score:3)
... so we can bet it will be cancelled by fall 2022?
Seriously, I don't know why I would put any resource in a Google project at this point when most of them end up being terminated despite having some users within a couple of years.
full price games + cap + 4k fees + lag will kill i (Score:2)
full price games + cap + 4k fees + lag will kill it.
GOG and steam just need to say our games work off line and you OWN them.
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GOG can say that, but their library is limited. Steam can't say that for anything other than Valve's own games. (What was the last game they put out? Artifact: The DOTA Card Game??)
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I think Google have the clout to pull this off. They certainly have to money to cover advertising and hyping it up... And of course Christmas is coming with no other new consoles on the market this year.
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Nothing stops you from plugging your PC into your TV at home. Every video card on the market supports both monitors and TV's without any issue. Having a console simply means you're getting screwed by a locked ecosystem.
Thing is, google might have the clout. But the market for this isn't there, 2020 will be the next launch for new consoles. And it's also when the big titles will be hitting the market as well, this year has been rather mediocre for gaming.
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But, after a couple years, Google has already gotten all the info about those users that it can - so, from Google's point of view, what'd be the value proposition in continuing to maintain the service?
Re:Stadia opens this month ... (Score:4, Funny)
... so, from Google's point of view, what'd be the value proposition in continuing to maintain the service?
It'll be used to train Terminators.
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good so they will shoot with big lag.
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They’ll also be cancelled after a few years, which is a big plus.
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Thumper could not be a worse choice for this . . . (Score:2)
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Stadia did have a free-to-sign-up beta program. They did have an approval path, but hey, I'm 60 & they took me in.
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I haven't tried Stadia since they didn't do a public beta, but xCloud for me only had barely noticeable lag in COD and was identical to using a wireless gamepad when playing the game locally.
I don't want to belittle your experience when I've never used xCloud, nor do I play much CoD, but how can that possibly be true? CoD was always famously a very snappy game. 60fps on consoles and based on an engine known for its low latency. Adding 50ms or more to that simply HAS to be noticeable and the wireless gamepad on the 360 at least added VERY VERY little lag so you must have been experiencing 16-32ms lag locally at most versus 80-100ms on xCloud minimum. This isn't the shitty bluetooth stack on wind
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Eh, rhythm games can be made to work. People will bring up Guitar Hero's lag calibration, but that's not going to work for this since the important lag is input, not display lag. Yes, I know we (mostly incorrectly) refer to HDTV lag as input lag, but Stadia has ACTUAL input lag AND display lag simultaneously.
That said, the problem is not the lag, it's the variable lag. If you're getting lag spikes from 50-100ms then you'll just miss the button presses because there's no way to compensate for that without ai
Not for me.... (Score:2)
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When have google ever managed to market their own products to success? They are the biggest advertising PLATFORM, but they've only had moderate success trying to sell their phones, their in home spying speakers, not to mention their utter failures like the TV thing. Their success comes from offering free services that keep the eyeballs on some google property so that someone else pays them too much money to market to those eyeballs. Their other genius move was using all that analytics data to figure out how
Fiber was too hard for Google (Score:2)
Not enough people out there have low-enough latency connections to make this service viable for Google, where they define viable as "shitloads of paying users".
If they had kept going with Google Fiber, maybe there would be enough people who could conceivably use their service, but they gave up because it was too hard. Wimps.
This is going to be too hard, too. And then they will cancel it, and the hardware will be useless except perhaps for the controller. But since most controllers suck, I wouldn't hold my b
fiber build out costs a lot. att and verizon move (Score:2)
fiber build out costs a lot. att and verizon move slow on that.
Comcast will do it for an limited number of homes at $1000 install + $300/mo + $15/mo hardware rent for 3 years locked in.
Re: fiber build out costs a lot. att and verizon m (Score:2)
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I think fiber worked for Google. They actually pushed the other ISPs into providing much cheaper high-bandwidth low-latency offers than before. I don't think Google ever wanted to become an ISP, but they were interested in people getting better connection.
So in that sense, I think it worked.
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10Mbit for 720p, 20Mbit for 1080p, 35Mbit for 4K. Most cable internet customers should be able to swing that.
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I was in the Beta with AC:O, running the Beta in Chrome on Linux, and I have a 100/10 Mbps connection. (small town Illinois) It wasn't good enough for an acceptable experience. When it worked, it worked well, but say once every 10 minutes or so there'd be a few second hitch, the game would pixilate and basically you'd lose control. This was not optimal, especially if you were in combat.
That said, the Beta DID work on Chrome on Fedora, and did support my PS4 controller.
Oh yeah! (Score:2)
SAMURAI SHODOWN! Fuck ya! ... wait, you mean a game that a tiny 5$ Raspberry Pi zero can run via a Neo-Geo emulator?
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probably this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The new one that is coming out end of the year for pc and is already out on consoles
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Lalwz (Score:4, Interesting)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Too old to matter.
Destiny 2: The Collection - Too old to matter, also pretty much a failure of a game.
GYLT - This is a non-game. It'll be short with little to no gameplay. It's there to deliver a message about some "issue" (mental health?). If Kotaku, Polygon, etc. survive long enough to review it, they'll gush over it and label anyone who doesn't like an -ist or -phobe.
Just Dance 2020 - How would this even work? It couldn't be any better than the Wii version (just using controller accelerometers and gyros), plus lag kills it.
Kine - The only one I don't know anything about. It's some puzzle game (I love puzzle games). No clue how good it'll be, but it's not exactly the thing you need a streaming service for - it's even coming to the Switch.
Mortal Kombat 11 - The worst entry in the series since MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero? No thanks. I think the ridiculous story and the "woke" ending for Jax are fine - MK has always been absurd. But the character designs are just trash, trash, trash, and the gameplay is not improved from the previous one. It's also riddled with disgusting levels of micro transactions.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - You mean the game that just launched in a completely broken state on PC? Too old to matter anyway, it's been on consoles for a long time. South Park referenced it in S9.
Rise of the Tomb Raider - A decent game, but too old to matter. SotTR is the newest one, and even that's too old to matter, RTX or not.
SAMURAI SHODOWN;
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition - Hey! This one is here too. It's too old to matter, but if Tomb Raider (2013) was on it as well, then I'd say good on them for giving people the complete modern set. These are good games (I haven't played SotTR, though.)
Thumper - Is this the "indie" rhythm game from like 2016? LOL.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition - Well shit, they did one thing right! If you're getting or trying Stadia for any reason, play through all the the TR games, then laugh at the character designs in MK11.
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Oh shit I forget to mention Samurai Showdown. Depending on the version, possibly a good game. But multiplayer? Over the net after rendering is done over the net? Ew. Or single player only? Meh.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 - You mean the game that just launched in a completely broken state on PC? Too old to matter anyway, it's been on consoles for a long time.
To be fair, not everyone had issues with the RDR2 launch. I had the crash on load issue that fixed by disabling bitdefender. After that didn't have any issues until Sunday night when I lost about 30-60 minutes of gameplay (just wandering around) when my game wouldn't save and it stopped generating NPCs and animals. I saw the videos of the christmas light bug and all the other stuff, but guess I got lucky.
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Just Dance 2020 - How would this even work? It couldn't be any better than the Wii version (just using controller accelerometers and gyros), plus lag kills it.
It will probably be just like Just Dance Now [google.com], which uses your smartphone as an accelerometer and your smart tv as a screen. It's already a streamed game and I haven't heard much complaining about lag.
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Yeah. I will SO spend money on anything Google (Score:2)
Given their record history of service longevity and long term availability, I will certainly put my money on something that only exists until Google pulls the plug on it.
Nope (Score:2)
First i though it could be interesting, a netflix for games, you pay a fee each month and play whatever is available.
But now i understand you pay a subscription fee and still have to 'buy' the games or else you can't play them.
Ofcourse you are not actually buying them, because once they are no longer streamed or google abondons Stadia, you'll have nothing.
There are rumors about Valve also starting a streaming service, i'm curious to see what their model will be.
Not much of a library (Score:2)
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So that's how Epic got the money for those. Money from child gambling and Google.
Makes sense.