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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"

#671

Post by StanislavPetrov »

jayparth wrote: post #669
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with your point but I'd say 1980s!

Agree with your point but I'd say {decades in which you were a child}!

Childhood nostalgia absolutely plays a role, but in my experience game developers tended to trade quality for graphics as the years advanced. In the 1980s games like Ultima 4 couldn't use graphics as a crutch and thus had to make the games really engrossing. My other grips is the ever-decreasing difficulty of the games. Back in the 1980s most games were difficult (if not very difficult/nearly impossible) to finish. You could play a game back then for months or years and never finish it. There was no internet to search for the answers to problems or riddles you couldn't solve. Games were not designed to be easily completed by virtually anyone who played. I can't remember how many hours I spent playing Zork before I was able to solve all the puzzles and beat that game (let alone Zork II and Zork III).

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

#672

Post by taneq »

ukyrgf wrote: post #670
taneq wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not "running modern games" at any kind of acceptable frame rate and quality on a 15 year old CPU. And you absolutely aren't running VR on a 15 year old CPU even if you have a 4 year old GPU that technically fits within the minimum requirements.

Nobody said anything about the CPU, I've gone from two cores to quad to now... I dunno, whatever the hell an i7 is. 16? My screens have also gone from 1680x1050 to 1920x1080 to 2560x1080. I just took umbrage with the idea that you need to spend hundreds on your GPU to get good performance. People see the 3-monitor setups and RGB lights and streaming equipment and think that's PC gaming, but it's not. Games are more e…

Might have left a couple of steps out of your upgrade path then:

> I built my first computer 15 years ago for $500 using a $120 GPU. 10 years ago I upgraded it with a $120 GPU. 4 years ago I upgraded that with a $120 GPU.

If you've also upgraded your CPU to a relatively recent one, upgraded motherboard to suit, dropped some more RAM in it, maybe added an SSD, and your "4 year old $120 GPU" was actually a high end one that you got cheap, then sure. Your 15 year old PC case can play modern games because it's actually got a modern computer inside it.

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

#673

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

Lio wrote: post #614
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you are the kind of person to sell and buy used games, that will probably be pretty cheap. But that's becoming more niche by the day, even without Stadia. Most game sales are digital downloads from a storefront.

That would imply that the purchasers of these games are not price sensitive and would negate the implied price advantage of Stadia.

I have an experienced software engineer's salary, few expenses, and yet... the cost of a whole console to simply play a couple of exclusives (when the vast majority of games are available cross platform and you already own another console or pc) is still too high, even though it doesn't hurt much financially, overall. It isn't an impulse purchase. And it makes you feel like a mark/sucker if you go for it - ~$400 for a video game or two or three is a rip off. And these days, they all have a subscription service you need to buy if you want multiplayer or game updates.

At the same time, I never feel compelled to penny pinch by selling/buying used games. And I like to keep them, as I'm sure many other people do. Time, effort and inconvenience is involved with used buying and selling, and for many of us, that offsets the value of actual dollar savings.

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

#674

Post by birdyrooster »

mantap wrote: post #267
birdyrooster wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what their target audience could possibly be. If the game is so visually unappealing that the customer doesn’t care about frame rate or resolution, then it’s likely they already have the capability to render that with the console they already have. Stadia needs to convince people they have a better product than what consumers have today. Instead it looks like a step down and you still have to pay full pr…

Most people game at 60fps or even 30fps. If 60fps is an unacceptable slide show you are most definitely not in the target market.

The problem is that modern consoles have native support for higher refresh rates and Stadia will need to continue to scale with this.

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

#675

Post by on_and_off »

catalogia wrote: post #653
on_and_off wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except that stadia requires an ultra You can pick the options that won't work to make a point I guess, though I'm not sure what that point would be.

What about it requires the more expensive option? If an entry level chromecast can stream from youtube, why can't it stream from stadia? Maybe google is only willing to sell hardware equivalent to the ultra for use with stadia, but I don't see how that's a technical requirement. It seems like a business decision, and as such, is fair game for criticism.

yes, they just decided to restrict the stadia audience and endanger its launch in order to peddle a bit more chromecast, makes total sense.

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

#676

Post by notSupplied »

013a wrote: post #121
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 think it would be helpful to broaden your horizons a bit. Everyone is talking about Stadia; whether it will be good or not, whether it will eventually see long-term success. These are very boring questions. The more interesting question is whether cloud gaming will see success over the long term. Every major player, minus Nintendo, is entering or already in this market. Most notably, Microsoft is releasing xCloud v…

I like MS's positioning here not just for cloud, but overall. I'd love a world where I can cross-play, cross-own, and cross-save across a console, desktop, and streaming. They are in the best position to profit regardless of how players prefer to play their games, unlike Stadia, which has an interest in muscling out other forms of AAA gaming because they don't have fingers in those other pies.

The only thing MS doesn't have a strong position in is Mobile/Tablets. Sure streaming can reach it, but mobile devices are now effectively pushing last-gen console level graphics. With wide spread support for PS4/Xbox controllers (iOS 13 supports them natively now), this is a pretty legit platform. If you're Apple, you're probably chuckling at the idea of streaming as the solution to mobile gaming when you're putting world-class silicon into users hands, most of which is underutilized.

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

#677

Post by Kaiyou »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #636
Kaiyou wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how, imho, the best games of all time were all made in the 1990s, I don't think gaming is all that reliant on powerful hardware.

Agree with your point but I'd say 1980s!

The 80s laid the ground work, the 90s perfected it and from the 00s onwards it was all downhill with a few exceptions here and there.

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

#678

Post by account42 »

Crinus wrote: post #622
vocatus_gate wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Streaming games is the future, deal with it. So, so wrong. 1. Much of the world has heavy-handed data caps. Those aren't going away any time soon. Streaming two ways eats into that quickly. 2. Input latency is real, and super annoying. And it's not just that there's latency; that you can get used to. It's that there's highly unpredictable latency which is super frustrating when playing anything but turn-based games…

Honestly, these aren't issues that would block something like Stadia, the solutions will simply be games designed around these issues pretty much how many modern games are designed around the limitations of a console controller or a mobile phone touch screen. These issues will be solved. The loss of control is not something that can be solved though and is IMO a much bigger issue.

> the solutions will simply be games designed around these issues pretty much how many modern games are designed around the limitations of a console controller or a mobile phone touch screen

If that happens it will just be another big negative impact of Stadia.

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

#679

Post by rasz »

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…

Long term vision is death to ownership, resale, game preservation, and quality.

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

#680

Post by jcranberry »

dorgo wrote: post #272
skohan wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game developers would have more to gain from a streaming-only model: 1. It's expensive to develop for multiple platforms. If you can get people to buy into streaming, you theoretically have only one hardware target. 2. Streaming is more effective at enforcing DRM for games. You can make a recording of a movie you're playing on Netflix, but games would require remote execution which can't be copied.

>but games would require remote execution which can't be copied. Next HN headline: Machine Learning algorithm reverse engineers a Stadia game.

I think there has been some reverse engineering of simple game engines through ML already actually.
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