Google Stadia Is Coming To Samsung, Asus, and Razer Phones On February 20th

In a blog post today, Google announced that Stadia will work on some Android phones from Samsung, Asus, and Razer starting on February 20th. Up until this point, Stadia only worked on certain Pixel phones. The Verge reports: Here's the full list of the 19 newly supported phones, which includes the Samsung Galaxy S20 line that's releasing on March 6th: [Samsung Galaxy S8 --> Galaxy S20 Ultra, Razer Phone, Razer Phone 2, Asus ROG Phone, and Asus ROG Phone II.] These new additions -- combined with the current support for the Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3A, Pixel 3A XL, and Pixel 4 -- mean that you can now play Stadia games on 26 different Android phones. Stadia's iOS app doesn't let you play games, though, so you will have to keep waiting if you want to play Stadia games on your iPhone or iPad.

Meh

[Presence Eternal]

Stadia is already a footnote and not really newsworthy. I'd rather read articles about its more interesting competitors.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

2 years from now every Stadia will be in a box in a closet next to Ouya and N-Gage. And without service it will be as useless as a Chumby.

The Stadia reality..

[Anonymous Dotter]

Won't this platform be defuncted in like 6 months anyway? I commend vendors for providing support but I fear it's a too little, too late situation for the platform as it's player base is on a steady decline.

Re:

[Bobrick]

6 months is hopeful at best, even Google itself doesn't give a shit about Stadia. It's an overpriced, terrible implementation of something that works far better and far cheaper elsewhere (GFN, Sony).

How does that make sense?

[HalAtWork]

I thought all the service needed was a web browser. And I thought the point was to make gaming possible without buying expensive hardware and to play it anywhere.

Now it needs to have official and specific support for high end phones?

Re:

[war4peace]

I'm more worried about availability.
Here's what Stadia has to say:

[quote]We aren’t in your region yet
You can still browse our products in any of the other regions.[/quote]

When I click United Kingdom, as per their recommendation I see this:

[quote]
You’re changing your region to United Kingdom. To place an order, your shipping address must be in this region. If your payment is not in this region’s currency, your bank may charge you a conversion fee. Any items in your cart will be removed.[/qu

Re:

[iampiti]

They're just probably letting it run on phones they've tested to be powerful enough to prevent the image of the service being soiled by being run on slow phones.

Mobile data is free and grows on trees

[WaffleMonster]

Well at the top of tall poles that used to be trees anyway.

Sad to see after all this time Google themselves don't even have a coherent excuse justifying Stadia.

Re:

[phantomfive]

I'd like to hear what inspired them to put so much effort into Stadia in the first place.

Games Games Games

[tuppe666]

The apps most people are buying are games, and consoles are looking increasingly like streaming boxies. The switch is literally a glorified tablet. 5G is already here. Literally everyone who can is looking for a piece of this gold rush, and Google have the numbers, already has many gaming phones. Technically they seems to have cracked the software and already have the infrastructure. That only leaves marketing and price...hmmmm

Re: Games Games Games

[tuppe666]

Neither is stradia... Think you should look it up. I would prefer a cheaper service with ads.

Re:

[thegarbz]

What wouldn't? Probably the fact that everyone has been clamoring for this kind of service for years but that it depends on the ability for local CDN, something which Google has plenty of.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Well in many countries mobile data is cheap enough that people are perfectly happy watching Netflix, and this isn't an additional bandwidth cost over that.

never should have been exclusive

[tuppe666]

Exclusively always seemed a bad idea, glad they have rolled it out to an market that will spend money on a Android games device, would love to have seen the mi black sharks on the list. Not sure what Samsung have done to get all the love.

How not to launch a service

[Slashic]

Is it too complicated to release an app that works with major SOCs hardware decoding capabilities instead of certifiying phone models one by one ? This is even more ridiculous than widevine L1 certifications and support by Netflix and Amazon prime...