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

411–420 of 834 posts

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

#411

Post by stiltzkin »

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…

As someone who has tested GeForce Now, Stadia and Shadow PC. I would advice see first what games are available on Stadia before jumping in. Being honest here Stadia library is really limited compared to Gamepass were with a beta xCloud included at least you get free to play games. Shadow PC play anything from any store like Steam or Gamepass on PC or any Android device. Stadia is a cool tech but lacks the backbone.

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

#412

Post by ketzo »

meheleventyone wrote: post #221
ketzo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty interesting thought, I hadn't at all considered the "cloud native game" angle. Based purely on my own experience with games, I tend to think that for the best results, you'd need a really good game studio to learn how to make a cloud game; I'm not sure you want a really good cloud company to learn how to make a game. But it's still a really good point. Was the Stadia studio explicitly for these kind o…

Cloud native is another concept that’s grossly oversold. It’s just GaaS with an extra step.

I dunno. Cloud gaming (theoretically) means that anyone could play from anywhere at any time. Surely such a powerful idea enables some cool new experiences out there in the infinite realm of human creativity?

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

#413

Post by stiltzkin »

pid_0 wrote: post #340
mattlondon wrote: post #34

Until you can play your Steam game library (and perhaps Epic and Unisoft and GOG) on Stadia, I think they'll struggle. I have paid for Geforce Now which does let you play Steam et al games (although not everything is available which is annoying) - it is about £4 a month currently (or free if you can spend time waiting to play) and the experience feels largely the same to Stadia to me in terms of latency and quality.…

Have you compared Geforce now to Stadia with the stadia controller? I can't imagine it would match it, it would be pretty much impossible

Stadia is only usable outside Stadia app only with USB cable connected. Stadia controllers are comfortable but DS5 is miles ahead on features.

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

#414

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#415

Post by bentcorner »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #376
hmage wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google had to solve same problem any new traditional gaming console has to solve -- get publishers interested in creating for that console. Good luck with that. The moat is so high that even if you have tech from year 2222, the business side trumps technology.

Architecturally, are Google's Stadia servers substantially different from a standard PC?

AFAIK they run Linux, so porting games over isn't necessarily "free"

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

#416

Post by alm1 »

I'm surprised at all the negative comments equating closure of the _game stuido_ to Stadia not doing well. Google is not known for good content production. Only example I can think of are Youtube Originals which hardly stand out.

I read the announcement as Google doubling down on title acquisition which probably worked out well. Cyberpunk was the largest game release last year (last 5 years?) and seemingly very popular on Stadia. Other titles they have (RDR2, Doom, Odyssey) are also among the best games of the last few years.

Personally, I never played any of the non-AAA titles on Stadia and would imagine most users are in a similar boat. Just doesn't make much sense to use a streaming service for low-key games I can play on my laptop directly. This is a big difference from early Netflix model, where they went for quantity.

My guess is that the internal studio failed to pitch any competitive titles and was disbanded. Makes sense to focus on the plumbing, while leaving titles to external studios who know how to do it well.

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

#417

Post by akmarinov »

readams wrote: post #383
cryptoquick wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people still so surprised when Google makes a thing and then two years later cuts apart the thing into oblivion? How many more times are they expecting their users to be Charlie Brown to their Lucy?

Google isn't cancelling Stadia; they're just not making their own games.

It’s the first step to cancelling it in an year or so.

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

#418

Post by cwyers »

015a wrote: post #271
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…

> 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…

Valve also has shipped exactly one first-party game since Dota 2 in 2013, outside of VR stuff, and it's a card game. I don't think they're tops on the list of studios that could give Google a big hit game to put on their new cloud console.

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

#419

Post by ilikehurdles »

dfgdghdf wrote: post #282
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…

Valve can do this stuff because they are a private company. Gabe has publicly stated that he does not believe in game streaming services, because he thinks computation is best done at the edge.

If Valve fully backed cloud gaming, that would have downstream effects on publishers and PC gaming as a platform. Who would sign on to publish a competitive, reaction driven game if the market is segmented between the high-latency cloud where anyone can play, and physical hardware only purchased by a relatively diminishing market?

The audience for tactical precise shooters, MOBAs, RTSs, etc would deteriorate and with it so would one competitive advantage of PC gaming. Might be tautological, but the games that thrive in the cloud are games designed not to need a PC to be played.

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

#420

Post by akmarinov »

enos_feedler wrote: post #402
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You're really selling me on using Microsoft over Google here: If I'm using a product/service, I'd prefer that it stay around as long as possible even if the company decides that it's a failure. Bonus po…

What do you think would happen? You wake up one day and everything is gone? As much as I am not selling Google vs. MSFT, give Goog some credit. They would make customers whole financially and find a home for the platform.

More like it’s going to drag its feet being dead for 2-3 years past the point that anyone cares about the platform. Then when usage plummets enough, it’ll get killed during some big event to mask it.
Post reply on HN