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"Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

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Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#131

Post by ekianjo »

ben_jones wrote: post #88
ekianjo wrote: post #49

I read the article, but it feels like "don't build anything until you are sure users want X". The problem is that nobody knows what users actually want, especially when you build something new. And the market will keep throwing ideas in several directions until one day, an idea sticks and becomes successful. Like, no gamer in pre-Wii times "wanted to play hours standing with a motion controller". Nintendo released th…

If you're a serial entrepreneur trying to get rich, or maybe a corporate product manager trying to get a juicy bonus, ya you'll have no clue what the users want because you'll be forcing it. But if you are one of the users you are very much aware of what your problems are and what might solve them - even if you don't have whatever domain experience is necessary to solve them. I agree with your overall point, that thi…

> gamers should own the games they buy

Agree with the sentiment, but almost every digital purchase nowadays does not tie with ownership, but a license to use whatever you pay for - and it can be nullified at any point in time. If Steam were to go bankrupt tomorrow (unlikely, but for the sake of the argument let's imagine it), you would probably lose complete access to your library of games you "bought".

One exception may be GOG with its DRM-free policy, but it's a very small part of the online reselling market.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#132

Post by perennate »

mrep wrote: post #126
perennate wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, according to their FAQ [1], "you will need a Stadia Controller and access to Stadia to play". So apparently you have to drop $170 CAD just to get started, and that's in addition to the subscription cost (but it comes with 3 months of subscription). [1] https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9338946

Pretty sure you won't need that when the free 1080p base version comes out next year. I played 30 hours of assassins creed during the beta last year on my macbook pro with a xbox 360 controller.

Is Stadia only targeting console games? Maybe I'm confused by this controller requirement because I'm assuming that I should be able to play e.g. Cities: Skylines on my Chromebook without a controller. (something which you can already do on NVIDIA GeForce NOW in the beta)

I don't get why the marketing has to be so confusing for these platforms. Stadia in Google Store focuses on these physical products instead of the digital subscription, and NVIDIA decided to reuse their name for a previous cloud gaming product that can also be confused with their GPUs. It's like they all want their products to fail.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#133

Post by birdyrooster »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #110
birdyrooster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not well known but AT&T and Nvidia partnered to use hardware encoding/decoding (Shield) and fiber internet with compute at the last mile and they still couldn’t make a product that wasn’t laggy and have distracting artifacts. I am sorry to say Google‘s demonstration was more of the same and customers will not overlook this. Imagine how bad VR titles would get you motion sick with all of that latency and compress…

It depends on where you're located. With FiOS in NYC I can get to AWS Virginia in 18ms. I don't have any Google Cloud servers to test with. When I use Steam/NVidia in home streaming with my GTX 1080 card, I can render a 1080p frame in about 10-12ms and decode it in 10ms on my 4K FireTV. (I beat Witcher 3, TombRaider, and Hitman with it over a 50Mbit powerline ethernet setup and they all looked fine BTW.) Even if the…

I don’t know what games you play, but in home streaming is too much lag for me on basically any game. For myself, 144hz is a requirement because 60fps is a slide show. The resolution would need to be increased as 1080p looks terrible, so that is unacceptable too.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#134

Post by bhauer »

Here's a take: I don't want Stadia; I want a modern and personal Sunray. I've described a computing model called PAO [1] on my blog that is Sunray-like in that you connect to your own personal computing environment from all devices concurrently. Singular instances of your applications are merely viewed on all of your devices, using view adaptation similar to today's responsive web apps (and Microsoft's UWP desktop app model).

The key differences from Stadia:

1. PAO would not be just for games but for all computing.

2. PAO would not be centralized by default, but broadly deployable, making it something you could self-host on a compute node anywhere (e.g., in your home with a static IP and VPN). PAO would work especially well with a network abstraction layer like ZeroTier, allowing all of your devices to coexist in a private virtual network. You could of course pay a service provider to host your compute node, but that would be one option among many.

3. PAO would expect multiple concurrent clients to applications. A single email app would exist and service views on your home laptop, work desktop, and mobile phone concurrently.

[1] https://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#135

Post by kyrra »

Someone1234 wrote: post #94
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #36

I want Stadia. I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. If Google doesn't drop the ball (which is a huge if knowing the company's history), Stadia makes a lot of sense. I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, the cheapest way to do that as I don't have a console nor an expensive computer is Stadia. And when I will want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Stadia will be the ch…

> I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. In my experience you should should never buy a product for what it might be one day and instead only pay for the what you're getting on day one. That way you're never disappointed/always get what you paid for. For example I recently purchased an Oculus Rift. I waited until enough games released so that I couldn't be dis…

The $129 starting bundle gives you a controller ($69), and a Chromecast Ultra ($69), which is... $138. Plus the bundle gives 3 months of "Stadia Pro" which is the 4k streaming support (plus other goodies). So the $129 is more of a starter bundle.

If you just want to play on your phone or PC, it's free (outside the cost of buying games). You can plug a PS4 or XBox controller into your PC, or pair them with your phone via bluetooth and use those. I believe there is also Nintendo Switch controller support.

(I'm a googler, opinions are my own)

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#136

Post by perennate »

tonmoy wrote: post #128
perennate wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, according to their FAQ [1], "you will need a Stadia Controller and access to Stadia to play". So apparently you have to drop $170 CAD just to get started, and that's in addition to the subscription cost (but it comes with 3 months of subscription). [1] https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9338946

This FAQ page DOSE NOT have this quote right now! From this FAQ page: > Do I need to use your Controller? (Stadia Controller) > No, you can use many popular HID compliant controllers when playing via USB cable on Chrome or mobile. To play on your TV you will need to use the Stadia Controller and Google Chromecast Ultra.

It is under "Which Chromecast devices are compatible with Stadia?". I refreshed and still see the quote.

Is there a difference between playing in Chromecast vs playing in Chrome browser? And why do you need a controller at all if you're just playing desktop games?

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#137

Post by bonestamp2 »

mping wrote: post #82
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #36

I want Stadia. I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. If Google doesn't drop the ball (which is a huge if knowing the company's history), Stadia makes a lot of sense. I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, the cheapest way to do that as I don't have a console nor an expensive computer is Stadia. And when I will want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Stadia will be the ch…

Netflix is a good comparison because google will need to secure rights for AAA games, and some games don't appear in all platforms. Fortunately, a user can install Steam/GOG/Origin whatever and just pay for a single game, unlike video streaming platforms. In terms of pricing, 9$99 for 4K/60Hz games is 120$/y; if you buy two AAA games (around 59$) it's already the same price, so in the end the appeal is NOT having a b…

> google is basically renting a gaming PC with a higher latency

In a way, it's like renting DVDs/VHS tapes in the past. They quality wasn't always the best, but that was usually a fair trade off considering the price of owning everything.

In this case, you don't need to own a really high end graphics card to get the best visual quality, but the overall quality of the experience still takes a hit due to latency.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#138

Post by roel_v »

Iv wrote: post #120
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #36

I want Stadia. I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. If Google doesn't drop the ball (which is a huge if knowing the company's history), Stadia makes a lot of sense. I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, the cheapest way to do that as I don't have a console nor an expensive computer is Stadia. And when I will want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Stadia will be the ch…

I could see playing RTS or tactical RPGs, but it is a very poor idea to propose FPS. It is already hard to have a reactive system locally, proposing remotely is. You need to react in 16ms if you want a snappy 60Hz. 1000 km from the server is adding 6 ms of ping. At one point, proposing this kind of service has the speed of light as a "technical constraint".

Nvidia is going to add negative lag to their service, so there's that...

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#139

Post by kingbirdy »

Crinus wrote: post #113
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #36

I want Stadia. I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. If Google doesn't drop the ball (which is a huge if knowing the company's history), Stadia makes a lot of sense. I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, the cheapest way to do that as I don't have a console nor an expensive computer is Stadia. And when I will want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Stadia will be the ch…

> the lack of a long term vision How about this for a long term vision: any game you buy now will be totally lost in the future ("long term") when Google decides to shut down the service (which happens all the time) or deactivate your account (which also happens all the time) while developers will have moved on and/or closed and wont give a second thought about. In the meanwhile, while Stadia exists, any games will b…

Stadia doesn't prevent you from owning your own hardware, nor will it. It's just another option for people who can't afford to own hardware.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#140

Post by javajosh »

tombot wrote: post #2

Stadia exists because Google wants to create more opportunities to show video advertising. What better way to do this than to turn games into another type of streaming video. Pre-roll before the game starts, mid-roll in between levels. When players stream games to other views, more pre-roll before they watch.

This is absolutely true, but it doesn't mean the product doesn't have it's place. I for one don't particularly want to get involved with the "gaming PC" consumption game, but I sometimes would like to play a AAA game I read about. Playing a game through a stream on someone else's gaming rig seems like a good way for me to do this.

Of course, what would really be interesting would be to setup a city-wide pool of gaming PCs and pay your neighbor to remote-pilot games, with low latency and keeping the spend local (and distributed). Think of it like "AirBnB for Gaming PCs". You could cobble something together today with VNC.

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