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

481–490 of 834 posts

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

#481

Post by ahelwer »

p1necone wrote: post #465
5d749d7da7d5 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Titan was the most premium card available and probably not representative of a typical build.

As are the modern cards that cost $1000. You can spend significantly less that that and still play all the modern titles at high settings and 1080p60fps easily. (Or 4k if you're willing to make the same compromises on framerate that consoles do)

The minimum card you need to play current games on 1080p/60fps/high settings is about a GTX 1070, a four-year-old card which goes for $300 used. Remember we're comparing this to the cost of using a game streaming service.

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

#482

Post by ehsankia »

zajio1am wrote: post #432
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…

> If you're an old gamer who wants to play newer games but doesn't have a ton of time and don't want to drop $1k+ Or just pay $150 for a second-hand graphics card that is one or two generations behind current models but was top-end at its age, and put it to a basic desktop PC.

Assuming you have a basic desktop PC, otherwise that will be more than $500, at which point you may as well just get a last gen console... Or you can pay 0$ and just play on Stadia within 5 minutes and not go through the trouble of buying and setting up hardware for a week.

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

#484

Post by ehsankia »

Timpy wrote: post #397
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…

I thought I had to buy Stadia to Pro to play any game. This isn't the case. There was a game I wanted to play, it doesn't run on Linux, I bought it 50% off on Stadia and I'm a happy user. I'm not going all in on Stadia of course; I realize that there's a good chance Stadia will disappear eventually. For the convenience and quality I'm getting now I don't mind buying this game on Steam again later if it happens that S…

I honestly don't see how Stadia could go away without refunding users for their games. So yes the worst case if you just have to buy it on Steam with the refund you get.

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

#485

Post by rolph »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #406
ceejayoz wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? That brings us right back to “everyone needs a hefty at-home computing device that goes underutilized most of the time”?

Maybe they're referring to using individual computers as part of the cluster of boxes providing streaming gaming, like distributed computing projects.

yes that is part of the reference.

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

#486

Post by mckeed »

h0l0cube wrote: post #390
lumost wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the really confusing part to me. For most of the major metro's of the world cloud gaming is completely feasible on today's internet. Playing on servers in NYC from Boston works flawlessly as a casual gamer, and really opened up the possibility for me to enjoy AAA titles. Most studios have to target a variety of hardware, stadia exclusives could have allowed studios to focus exclusively on top end experiences…

It seems in recent times, Google product development is always backwards. They never fully commit to anything, with the mind that if they see an up-tick in adoption, they'll invest in it. But maybe if they put more than a cursory effort into anything new, they might provide something valuable and generate another revenue stream. But perhaps they're just too comfortable with the loads of cash coming from ads?

Probably because the last product they put full commitment into was Google Plus.

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

#487

Post by drusepth »

ehsankia wrote: post #461
oivey wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m unsure how Nvidia’s approach is worse. On GeForce now you can play games from Steam or Epic, right? Isn’t Stadia the same except you are locked into only Google’s store? That’s pretty significantly worse.

Nvidia literally throws you in a VM, where you have to log into Steam and use it as a computer. You & I may be gamers or computer users, but normal people don't want to deal with that shit. It also again assumed you have a Steam/Epic account to begin, or else that's another layer you have to deal with. With Stadia, you press one button and you're in the game 5s later. It also has deep integration, allowing friends li…

I've silently listened on Discord to two different friends trying to get GFN working (for Among Us) in the past couple weeks. It's crazy how hard it can apparently be to install and set up for the average person.

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

#488

Post by ehsankia »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #142

Fundamentally these big tech companies just don’t understand game development. AAA games cost a lot of money, so these companies think that if you come with a bunch of money, you will end up with a AAA game. My company was pitched by both Google (for stadia) and Amazon to create games for them and it was totally clear they had no idea what they were doing, and no idea what they were even trying to achieve. The funny…

It's just a different culture and process even. Game studios are more entertainment companies than tech companies. There's also a high ratio of artists and other talent which tech companies aren't used to dealing with. The development process and workflows are very different too.

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

#489

Post by sp332 »

apozem wrote: post #366
lumost wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the really confusing part to me. For most of the major metro's of the world cloud gaming is completely feasible on today's internet. Playing on servers in NYC from Boston works flawlessly as a casual gamer, and really opened up the possibility for me to enjoy AAA titles. Most studios have to target a variety of hardware, stadia exclusives could have allowed studios to focus exclusively on top end experiences…

The dream of cloud gaming, for me, is everyone gets an amazing gaming PC. I just bought a new PC, and it’s great, but it sits under my TV, unused, for 90-whatever percent of its life. If you can deliver cloud gaming as a complete product that actually offers value, the potential efficiency is staggering.

I've been using GeForce Now, the main advantage being that I will still own my games if they ever cancel the service. For now it's only $5/month and includes ray-tracing capable hardware, but I doubt it will be that price for long.

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

#490

Post by readams »

acdha wrote: post #387
readams wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yet. If they don't believe in their own product, how many other companies will, and how many of them will jump into a service which has a roadmap they don't control versus setting up their own service?

Running a cloud infrastructure is something Google is good at. Making AAA games is not. It is entirely consistent with a deep belief in the product for them to reallocate resources toward partnerships rather than trying to spin up a AAA game studio internally.
Post reply on HN