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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"

#351

Post by corodra »

turtlebits wrote: post #293

"Gamers" don't want Stadia. And all the negative reviews of Stadia are by people who already have console/gaming PCs. It's targeted for those that don't have either, like me. I carry my Pixelbook everywhere and would be nice to play games on it. I don't want another device to carry around and don't have the time or patience to wait for patches/updates or the ridiculous storage requirements games have nowadays. The on…

I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern?

I travel for work or for vacation. If for work, I'm there hitting "Spit money out for me" at an ATM. Not gaming. I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan to enjoy home time more. End of days is visiting restaurants/bars and either socializing or schmoozing clients. If none of that, I read a book, do work on the laptop or enjoy a movie.

Vacation... I mean... seriously, I can game at home. I go somewhere to do NOT home stuff. Why would I travel somewhere and spend money to... play video games like I would at home? Even not vacation, I go to the beach on the weekend to... hear me out... walk on the sand, sun bathe and go in water.

These excuses for a subpar games as a service are pretty ridiculous. It's an obvious "We found a solution to a problem that doesn't exist". That and the controller looks so bottom barrel generic. It's like the knock-off to a knock-off of an Xbox controller until they realized it was for a ps3 instead and did a late night change to it.

Edit: I get it, everyone vacations differently. But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. You are there to not-home. But I also don't get the japanese restaurants where they expect you to cook your own food. Mofo, if I'm going to cook, I'll cook at home. I go somewhere to pay a premium for food, it's so I don't have to cook it. I'm 32, stop making me feel like the old man yelling to stay off my lawn!

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

#352

Post by Mirioron »

nkrisc wrote: post #325
turtlebits wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I should have clarified. My only devices are a Pixelbook and my work MBP - no desktop. Playing at home (or work) are totally fine for me. Playing games like Hearthstone (where latency isn't breaking factor) is fine with me as well.

FWIW Hearthstone calibre games are already playable on any moderately recent smartphone. Not much gain from Stadia in that regard.

To add to that: I've played Hearthstone itself on a Oneplus One (phone from 2014).

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

#353

Post by drusepth »

reaperducer wrote: post #307
skohan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if you buy the XBox bundle, you pay once and you can play Red Dead Redemption 2 as long as you want in 4k. If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee.

If I get Stadia and want to keep playing my game in 4k a year from now, I have to sign on to a monthly fee. This past weekend I played Outlaw on my Atari 2600. Assuming I paid $40 when it came out, that means I paid 8¢/month for that game. Talk about value!

I would assume you wouldn't have been paying $0.08/month since 1976 (just like you wouldn't be paying monthly on Stadia when you weren't using it), so the monthly cost for the game would actually be significantly higher if you want to amortize its cost over months you've actually played. :P

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

#354

Post by summerlight »

turtlebits wrote: post #293

"Gamers" don't want Stadia. And all the negative reviews of Stadia are by people who already have console/gaming PCs. It's targeted for those that don't have either, like me. I carry my Pixelbook everywhere and would be nice to play games on it. I don't want another device to carry around and don't have the time or patience to wait for patches/updates or the ridiculous storage requirements games have nowadays. The on…

Yeah, the status quo is a bit disappointing. In a technical point of view, it's pretty nice. But for UX, there are simply too many moving parts (Stadia App + Chromecast + Stadia Controller + monthly subscription), which defeats its own purpose.

Hopefully, most of this artificial requirements will be gone in a coming year, but it's still far from its true vision. Clicking a "Play now" on Youtube does make a lot of sense, but the important question is "when".

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

#355

Post by chachachoney »

siffland wrote: post #185

So it is $129 for the device, $9.99 Per month, $x.xx for the internet connection you require at all time due to no offline play, $x.xx to buy titles that you can only play with said internet connection. At least now you CAN buy games you can play offline with the other consoles and PC. If someone came up with Movies Anywhere for video games so i could buy it once and play on any console i would be cool with this, but…

>> I bet with the data mining and everything they will do fun stuff like have real time ads play on billboards in games targeting you and other such fun stuff (maybe they do that already in games, i have never looked).

It's going to get interesting when they decide to start aggregating and storing in game behaviors, and then selling that data to third parties or using it to augment their incursions into health-care/insurance.

It'll get even more interesting when they cooperate with authoritarian states to identify 'problem' citizens based on in-game behaviors or limit the spectrum of possible in-game behaviours within ostensibly open world sandbox environments.

I'll leave the predictive policing branch of this prognostication as an exercise for the reader.

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

#356

Post by gshulegaard »

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'm with you. I'm a gamer, but I'm also a software engineer that travels 75% of my time for work. When I travel I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Extreme Gen2 running Ubuntu.

For me the idea of being able to grab a smaller form factor ultrabook but still be able to do a little gaming in the evening during the work week is massively appealing. Of course the performance would have to be "good enough".

When I am actually at home and have my full rig available I would not use Stadia...but I do see a use case for Stadia (for me).

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

#357

Post by hombre_fatal »

corodra wrote: post #351
turtlebits wrote: post #293

"Gamers" don't want Stadia. And all the negative reviews of Stadia are by people who already have console/gaming PCs. It's targeted for those that don't have either, like me. I carry my Pixelbook everywhere and would be nice to play games on it. I don't want another device to carry around and don't have the time or patience to wait for patches/updates or the ridiculous storage requirements games have nowadays. The on…

I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern? I travel for work or for vacation. If for work, I'm there hitting "Spit money out for me" at an ATM. Not gaming. I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan to enjoy home time more. End of days is visiting restaurants/bars and either socializing or schmoozing c…

Your post makes sense if the only travel you do is your 2-week vacation you get every year while always returning to a permanent living fixture, like a house you own. Or if you just don't mind owning a bunch of appliances.

I'm someone who lives abroad and doesn't like hunkering down with any equipment, not even a bookcase. I don't like staying in one apartment for a long time. The only cooking appliance I own is a single cast iron skillet. Something like Stadia interests me if it can deliver.

Also, even when you're at the beach all day every day, you still come back to a place to sleep where you might enjoy some gaming or Netflix. And if you are living there for weeks, you'll find that you don't need to visit the beach every single day to enjoy your time there. It's nice to merely do something you love in a place you love. :)

I'm generally happy with the few games I have on my Macbook Pro. But even on a $2000 two-year-old machine, I have to play almost everything at minimal gfx settings and I have limited SSD space. Even a game like Civilization 5 becomes a stuttering mess. I don't see the need to dismiss Stadia without trying it.

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

#358

Post by drusepth »

odessacubbage wrote: post #258
sjs382 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stadia costs $129 with no games. Stadia is a service which Google says will be free in 2020. The $129 "Stadia FE" is a controller ($79 a la carte) and a Chromecast Ultra ($69 a la carte). "Stadia FE" also comes with two games: Destiny 2 and Samurai Showdown.

the fact that google is trying to to use a fighting game to showcase their product should tell you everything you need to know about their understanding of the market.

I feel like they're giving a free fighting game because they understand their market. The biggest worry people have before they try it is latency, but almost everyone that's sat down to play it so far has talked about how it feels nearly indistinguishable from a console latency-wise.

A game that demands low latency (like a fighting game) is a great way to demo how noticable (or not) the latency is on your setup before you buy any other games that need little to no latency to enjoy.

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

#359

Post by perennate »

evervevdww221 wrote: post #166
akvadrako wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make sense that a computer at home, with 5% utilization and retail power prices, can be less per hour than a computer with 50% utilization and wholesale power? Even if all you do is host single-user machines with retail games installed and some kind of imaging solution, it seems like it should pay off.

one more detail regarding cloud utilization. It might not be what you think it is. Game playing activity peaks roughly at the same time during a day, mainly in the evening. Basically you need to launch one vm per user during that time. And those vms will be idle during the day time. Sure, due to time differences, those vms can be used by other people from a different time zone. But the further the data center is, the…

Sounds like we need a startup that offers mobile flying datacenters!

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

#360

Post by vel0city »

vvanders wrote: post #334
shinteao wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>all the negative reviews of Stadia are by people who already have console/gaming PCs. I think most people who like playing video games would have some sort of video game playing hardware, yes. So, they might have opinions on what a good gaming experience is. And, if they have issues with Stadia (incl latency, graphical fidelity, and library), then it might be coming from an informed place.

Yup, also if you look at people who write or have written netcode for a living, it's been pretty obvious where Stadia was heading for a while. You need to be able to reliably hide ~100-200ms of latency for any number of reasons. If you're talking about something that runs over wifi you're fighting against the laws of physics and no back-end infrastructure is going to save you. The way you do that is with client side…

100-200ms latency seems a little extreme to me. Its an 8ms ping from my home to the nearest Google edge node (supposedly where Stadia nodes will live), 9-11ms on my WiFi. Compression and decompression of the video stream with hardware acceleration and tuned for speed over quality should only add maybe another ms or two. Where is the extra 80+ms coming from?
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