Stadia Founder's Edition • Hacker News Board

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#101

Post by saynay » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

lawrenceyan wrote: post #37

endorphone wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google isn't a company that restricts their services in such a coupled manner. I fully expect it to be supported on most devices where it's possible to support it.

In my opinion, restrictive would be keeping Stadia to only Google specific hardware. Making it available for all Android devices feels pretty good to me.

I would actually suspect more of the opposite. Their biggest hurdle, at least initially, is fighting the perception that the service just won't be performant enough to be a good experience. I would not be surprised if they start with a limited set of high-end devices (Apple ones included), just so people don't blame device limitations on the service instead.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#102

Post by jasonlotito » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #36

So you order some thin client for 129 bucks, pay 10 dollars a month for the service and buy the games? I was assuming Stadia to be like a sort of Netflix for games. I could just as easily buy a console and buy the games.

Or you just buy a controller and buy the games you want and that's it. You don't need to pay $10/month. You don't need to spend $129 right now. For free, you won't get 4k, you won't get discounts, and you won't get free games, but you you don't need to pay monthly.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#103

Post by CptFribble » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

belltaco wrote: post #66

haolez wrote: post #12

I think that an underestimated benefit of game streaming is anti-cheat. It would benefit a lot games like Fortnite and Pubg.

How so? There are very common aimbots based on computer vision that will work just fine on a PC with Chrome running Stadia games. Sample naive algo: -Get a color range (RBG) of the enemy model's head. -Take screenshot of screen and scan for pixel in that range. -If match, get the x,y pos of that pixel. -Set mouse(or controller) pos to that x,y pos. -Click E.g https://github.com/Dewep/POC-AimBot-Overwatch The sample c…

Not every game outlines the enemies in red like Overwatch. Many times, the player model heads don't have their own exclusive pallette.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#104

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #52

jonathanhd wrote: post #46

This is astoundingly cheap. In fact its too cheap, €10/month works out to €360 + €130 over a 3 year hardware cycle which is barely enough for a not-really-capable 4k GPU as it is, without costing all the additional services/hardware. And to put it bluntly, these games are second-rate titles from the last year. From this announcement I guess that this is mostly just another data farming play that will never generate a…

You are not taking into account for the fact that the hardware will be used constantly by multiple people on and on. I play on average 1 hour of video game a day, multiply that by 24, or 12 or 6 to be more conservative, you are still getting a good margin on hardware cost.

He's right though, 10 is not enough. For fractional gpu use, bandwidth, electricity, and engineering, service support, business dev, and marketing salaries at the google level? Even if we assume that they can run 100 users on each GPU, that wouldn't be enough. (They can't run 100 users on each gpu, but even if they could.)

There's some other play here? Not really sure what google's strategy is, but these prices make it clear they don't need to make money.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#105

Post by remir » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

sourthyme wrote: post #77

partiallypro wrote: post #69

I just don't see how they are going to compete with Microsoft on this, or Sony for that matter. I can't help but think this will be killed off in the next 2-3 years due to low adoption. Microsoft and Sony already have their foot in the door, and xCloud is supposedly going to be an E3 topic...and I'm sure they will bundle it with existing Xbox Live services for a bump in price. Google has proven me wrong in the past,…

To me this seems like xCloud is in response to Stadia. Google has the infrastructure and Microsoft and Sony need to work together to compete. This would be similar to how Microsoft and Sony responded to the Nintendo Wii.

I'd say MS is pretty well positioned to compete against Google: they have the infrastructure plus an actual good catalogue of games. Sony may not have the infrastructure on their own, but by partnering with Microsoft, they'll become a solid competitor too since they have an excellent games catalogue.

Google are the ones who will have to prove themselves here, IMO.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#106

Post by saynay » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #52

jonathanhd wrote: post #46

This is astoundingly cheap. In fact its too cheap, €10/month works out to €360 + €130 over a 3 year hardware cycle which is barely enough for a not-really-capable 4k GPU as it is, without costing all the additional services/hardware. And to put it bluntly, these games are second-rate titles from the last year. From this announcement I guess that this is mostly just another data farming play that will never generate a…

You are not taking into account for the fact that the hardware will be used constantly by multiple people on and on. I play on average 1 hour of video game a day, multiply that by 24, or 12 or 6 to be more conservative, you are still getting a good margin on hardware cost.

I would imagine they start using spare capacity for big number crunching tasks as well.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#107

Post by blueboo » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

atq2119 wrote: post #35

haolez wrote: post #12

I think that an underestimated benefit of game streaming is anti-cheat. It would benefit a lot games like Fortnite and Pubg.

Competitive games, at least competitive shooter games, are really the worst application for this though because they suffer the most from input-to-display latency. Games like League of legends might be fine though.

They suffer from uneven or inconsistent input-to-display latency. If Stadia can give everyone the same, (hopefully) modest amount of latency, the games remain as fair as they ever were

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#108

Post by saynay » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #13

And the betting on when this product will be shut down by Google has already begun...right now 3 years is the choice with the most money behind it. Some fools are guessing Google may give this as much as 5 years. Given Google's abysmal history of supporting its software and hardware products, see e.g., the Nest fiasco from a few weeks ago, only a fool or someone with cash to waste would invest in a Google hardware de…

Certainly a concern for the games purchased on top of this platform. If Stadia gets shuttered, your access to those games would just vanish.

The hardware would be a weird thing to be worried about though. Chromecast won't be going anywhere, and the controller is still usable even if Stadia ceases to exist.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#109

Post by SoupyDolphin » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

Discussions around Stadia always fail to mention the alternatives.

I've been using GeForce Now with a Nvidia Shield for over a year now and it's been a great experience. The hardware costs are the same as the Stadia ($130), it's free to use while the beta period lasts, and you can play all the games you've already purchased on Steam, BattleNet, Epic etc. in 4k.

Why would I buy all the games AGAIN on Stadia when I can access them on GeForce now? The social/streaming aspect of Stadia is not a big draw for me either, so I really don't see the advantage from my perspective.

Re: Stadia Founder's Edition

#110

Post by ilovecaching » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

SoupyDolphin wrote: post #109

Discussions around Stadia always fail to mention the alternatives. I've been using GeForce Now with a Nvidia Shield for over a year now and it's been a great experience. The hardware costs are the same as the Stadia ($130), it's free to use while the beta period lasts, and you can play all the games you've already purchased on Steam, BattleNet, Epic etc. in 4k. Why would I buy all the games AGAIN on Stadia when I can…

Stadia can be played on Chrome though which runs pretty much everywhere, with an Xbox controller. The Google founder's edition is just buying some extra stuff for 30$ worth of sub time for free basically.