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Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

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Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#621

Well I mean after OnLive everyone expected this.

I thought everybody else had forgotten about OnLive. It was the same thing, but 10 years before: a lot of media hype for a product that nobody wanted

I wanted it!

I played through the first third of Arkham Asylum using OnLive. The nail in the coffin for me at the time was the paltry selection of games; I couldn’t justify the subscription.

I work for a European ISP though, so I’ve generally had better-than-most internet service for the last 20 years.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#622

This is absolutely false. Feel free to quote this post in October. HN has a pretty high caliber of commenter compared to other forums. People believing a baseless rumor so easily is sad.

Wouldn't the classic Bayesian analogy here be you hear a tiger in New York, with the caveat that several dozen of your neighbors have eaten in the past few years (https://killedbygoogle.com/) by a family of the escaped cats from the Bronx Zoo.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#623
post #75

This is an anonymous source (not even verified by the original publicizer of the rumor) reporting second hand on what their "regional manager" friend heard in a "seminar". Why give any credence to this? This is about as close as it gets to "my friend has an uncle working at Nintendo" level of sourcing, but it's being taken as absolute fact by basically everyone in this thread. Mr. Killedbygoogle doesn't seem to be al…

But the baseline probability -- that Google will shut Stadia down at some point -- is what, 80%? higher? So even 'straw-in-the-wind' evidence [0] consistent with that hypothesis is probably pointing in the right direction.

[0] https://polisci.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/people/u382...

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its performance is unparalleled among cloud gaming services at the moment with the updates over the past year or so, Stadia is now a blurry, poorly upscaled mess in comparison, often locked at 30-45fps for certain titles while GFN is pushing real 4K at 120FPS with full ray tracing etc without breaking a sweat. https://youtu.be/B1bIGi1yjC8 It will routinely outperform a local series x (nevermind a PS5) given the right…

It was their streaming tech though that wasn't as good, rather than their rending of graphics as it was just a blurry mess and laggy. Will give it another try.

[deleted]

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be difficult from a security perspective, but if they provided their own flash drives for backing up games it could be the best for consumers and the manufacturers. Nearly all software produced currently ships out with the assumption that updates can easily be pushed out. As a concrete example, twenty years from now I don't want to play the original Mario Kart 8 that shipped when the switch was released, I w…

> The ideal situation would be an ability to write that information back to the card. Be careful what you wish for. You don't want them to have a dead man's switch on your physical copy.

Combine it with legally mandated ability to roll back to a previous version perhaps?

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I just noticed Amazon Drive is going away. No more uploads after 2023 January, no more access for non-photo/video files some time toward end of 2023. Years ago I got tired of the mess that was Google Picasa and transferred all photos, videos, and most important docs to Amazon Drive. Now I need to find yet another service.

It seems when it comes to cloud storage, you best bet is going with a company who's main product is cloud storage, and not just an afterthought or value-add like it was for Amazon. Or build your own NAS is you have the time and experience.

The NAS works until one's house burns down. My in-laws home is too close as an alternative, everyone else is too far away.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you asked but I've used stadia as my main gaming "platform" over the last couple years. That they were going to shut it down was obvious from the beginning, people in here bragging about that prediction are fools. It's still by far the best game streaming setup for what I want. I spent about $100 figuring I'd get a year or two out of it and it would be worth it for that. It was. If it continues thr…

Aren't there a lot of current competitors to Stadia? What were the key differentiators to you that Stadia has which those don't? Xbox Cloud Gaming https://www.xbox.com/en-US/play GeForce Now https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/ PlayStation Plus https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-plus/getting-started/#p...

They either didn't have the games I wanted to play or the latency was above the threshold that bothered me.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I don't sign on to anything new google does for a few years now. It's going to be buggy but promising initially, then be poorly supported, and then be cancelled leaving you high and dry. I can't really understand how people can trust google domains.

Domains are transferrable. If a registrar goes belly-up you can always and easily transfer the domains out to a new registrar, and if the old registrar doesn't want to release the domain the TLD registry can and will intervene on your side.

Mmmm. It's easy on paper, but I don't trust it anyway.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is highly unethical to take away copies of the game that players had to pay full price for. Stadia owes them a retail copy of the games they purchased.

What we need is a portable digital license. Like a card we can store in a sort of internet wallet and present to storefronts to get access to a game. That way publishers wouldn’t be able to bully customers to the extent they currently do. No way the gaming community would be opposed to such a thing.

It is a little absurd that I could have to repurchase each game on each console / platform.

I’d be willing to pay a game developer a premium for a universal license that works on all platforms. Steam, Switch, Stadia, etc for example.

I bet they’d make more revenue this way than from the people who just rebuy the game multiple times.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's denial takes nothing away from the credibility of this rumor. Google isn't going to deviate from their own preplanned PR campaign on any product's demise just because a rumor leaked. That doesn't mean this rumor is true, only that the denial has no informational content for evaluating the rumor. Yet on the other hand, if Google really wanted to refute the rumor , they'd say "It's not true, we have a firm roa…

> only that the denial has no informational content for evaluating the rumor. Disagree. They could have reacted in different ways: - a) completely ignoring the rumor. - b) make a "no-comment" message. - c) deny the rumor - d) confirm the rumor a) and b) may increase the likelihood of the rumor being true. But going for c) is clearly an indication that it's not in their short-term plans.

C) is only a clear indication under a too-short idea of what "short-term" means for a company like Google.

For large corporations 9-12 months is short term, and 1-2 years not too long to fall into that category either.

Critical points in Stadia's success are coming up in next few months. Pre orders for one of the most popular sports games in the world, releasing 100 games by the end of the year-- a benchmark they're behind on-- and a precarious expansion into Mexico.

These should show results before the end of the year, 5 months from now. If they underperform then I think it's extremely possible that a service cancellation would be announced within 9-12 months.

In the other hand they had no option except C, not really. Anything else would have as good as killed the service anyway. A) or B) would mean updated articles and new headlines would read "Google Won't Deny Rumours of Stadia's Death". B) would be the worst: "Google won't commit to further Stadia Support".

If they might kill it sometimes in the short term of 9-12 months but haven't made a final decision yet then C) was their only option regardless of the truth of any of those. C) conveys the least information (I'd say none) of those options because it does not provide any way to evaluate the truth of the statement unless you take Google at it's word. And yet whether or not we can take them at their word is exactly the thing in question.

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