Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

kotaku.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 834 posts

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#351

Post by delecti »

ahelwer wrote: post #326
015a wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> partnered with Valve and shipped something mind-blowing I tend to agree. In these cloud game streaming wars, Steam is a reservoir of totally untapped crude oil. Its the largest and most active western game platform, period, its beloved by its users, and Valve hasn't even remotely signaled an intention to compete. Companies and products like Steam are one in a million; Stadia, Luna, GeForce Now, xCloud, PSNow, are n…

The 2008-2017 period was great for PC gaming. Now graphics cards alone cost as much or more than an entire console. The prices only seem to go up. Game streaming has the opportunity to dramatically decrease costs. I think it will work.

Graphics cards have ranged across the price spectrum for the past 20 years. The first GeForce "Titan" card was $1000 and came out right in the middle of that time range (2013). I'm not sure what PC market you were watching for the past 20 years, but it's not the one I remember.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#352

Post by IkmoIkmo »

bastawhiz wrote: post #185

I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. I tried Stadia, and they had (have?) so few games that they seem to have neither search nor pagination on the list that you can play. None of the games are ones that I care about. It feels like they could have—at the cost of short-term profit and pride—partnered with Valve and shipped something mind-blowing. But instead we're left with a bunch of AAA games that fe…

The game library was the big issue for me, most playtime was quite smooth for me. But to a large extent it's publishers' faults, Geforce Now has the same problem with games they had before getting removed because publishers/devs opted-out.

I think Stadia had hoped that it could become big enough quickly, with the backing of Google's name and capital, that it could negotiate some good deals and build a big library quickly, to the point that there's so many gamers on Stadia that you can't not publish there anymore without losing a lot. Netflix and Spotify did it, too.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#353

Post by redisman »

enos_feedler wrote: post #276
partiallypro wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. Yes, but apply this to 90% of their new products. Google's planning in the current age is about as bad as Microsoft's in the 2004-2012 era.

At least they are winding things down faster. Google announced the studio in mid 2019 and shutting it down in early 2021. Microsoft decided retail stores were a good idea in 2011, and only closed them off last year. My bet is that Google is learning this mistake faster, no doubt with MSFT as an example.

Making a new game takes at a minimum a year for a simple game, more likely 2-4 years. So no, that is terrible planning on their part once again.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#354

Post by Jochim »

easton wrote: post #297
Jochim wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve have their own VR headset, the Valve Index. Steam Link was previously a hardware dongle but has been replaced by android/smart TV apps with the same name. I'm surprised Nvidia didn't attempt to partner with them rather than developing GeForce Now as a separate product, they could have taken advantage of Valve's developer relationship/client/store front and handled the actual running of the hardware, which Valve…

They are partnered, it's just not exclusive. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming

Ah, that's interesting. I had assumed any partnership would have integrated with the desktop steam client rather than a third party app, although I can see the benefits of separating it out in terms of pricing/billing models.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#355

Post by IkmoIkmo »

mey wrote: post #349
bastawhiz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only been a failure because of the lack of games. The tech (at least to me) feels fine. Which is honestly the worst part—it _could_ be a success but the business side is broken.

Compare to https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/ and https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/cloud-gaming Both have their own quirks, but they don't suffer from lack of games.

Geforce Now library kinda sucks to me, not all that much better than Stadia but that's my opinion. Stadia has a few names (e.g. Red Dead Redemption) that GFN doesn't and vice versa.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#356

Post by LegitShady »

Lammy wrote: post #136
LegitShady wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why Amazon rolled another engine. For the same synergistic effects as Epic and their game store + their engine. If you use epic's engine, they charge you less to sell your games. It's basically trying to incentivize selling on their platform and using their platform tools at the same time.

> If you use epic's engine, they charge you less to sell your games. Unless you have a contract dispute with them, in which case they bankrupt you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Human#Unreal_Engine_disput...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Knights#Silicon_Knight...

I don't think contract dispute is the right word. The developer sued epic for things it knew about in advance. Epic countersued and won.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#357

Post by javchz »

Honest question. What will happen if Google shut down stadia with the games I purchased? That's the main issue I have with the platform, will be a refund or even a steam / epic key after?

I loved Google Play Music, Reader, Hangouts and god knows how many chat apps google have made over the years to later kill. Still don't get why they don't better just make a startup with the idea and be like a VC, as right now it's really hard to trust any "made by google", it's almost a meme that will not last long.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#359

Post by ncr100 »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #299
rco8786 wrote: post #198

This is totally the right move. I am a (very happy) user of Stadia. If you haven't tried it, you really should...it's an amazing piece of tech. I can find myself with 20-30 minutes worth of downtime during the day, fire up Cyberpunk 2077 or Hitman or Assassin's Creed in moments from my browser *on a macbook* and play at high settings with no noticeable lag. Obviously you need a strong, steady internet connection for…

> Obviously you need a strong, steady internet connection for Stadia to shine, but I'd guess that the HN crowd skews towards that. Sad Australian internet noises. > don't want to drop $1k+ on a gaming rig, check out Stadia. Or, or, do buy the gaming rig, because it will still work and you’ll still have the games 3 years after Google inevitably shuts down stadia and you’re left with nothing.

> Sad Australian internet noises.

( Didgeridont? BTW amazing stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG9ZX1FS20A )

Self-owned gaming rig also nets you backwards compatibility.

I have used Stadia and have been impressed by its relatively seamless "drop in and play" capability.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#360

Post by [deleted] »

mdoms wrote: post #286
cheeze wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stadia is supported in 21 countries though. A majority of NA and EU. Totally feel for you, but similar to anything that requires a decent internet connection, NZ and AUS get left in the dust

NZ has excellent internet speeds.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN