When will Google shut down Stadia? • Hacker News Board

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#311

Post by earhart » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #274

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The counterargument would be that they've deployed a ton of network capacity and GPU resources for cloud computing anyway, and so Stadia is just riding on those coattails... But it's certainly not a promising track record. Exactly, in fact, Stadia is really just a way for Google to subsidize their cloud GPU buildout. Do you think those expensive GPUs are sitting idle in the meantime? No way! They're crunching numbe…

That's...probably not true at this moment. They're using AMD GPUs, which generally support the sorts of workloads folks need, and AFAIK they haven't opened up support for AMD GPU spot instances to users. The OpenCL ML ecosystem is really lacking at the moment.

PlaidML?

(Disclaimer -- I'm one of the devs. Even though we were bought by Intel a year or so ago, we've been pretty good about keeping the AMD / OpenCL support intact.)

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#312

Post by systemdtrigger » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

40acres wrote: post #174

I understand the cynicism of this community to Stadia but implore you all to think a little broader. Stadia is different, with this product Google is trying something really innovative. For one, the fact that Stadia actually costs money should be a signal of Google's long term ambition here. Yes, Fiber also cost money but was bogged down by the hell that is infrastructure development. Stadia will require a substantia…

Except if you stepped out of the hn bubble you'll know MS has had something similar in works for a long time so no, Google can't win here

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#313

Post by twblalock » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #38

What is going on with Google? I used to think Google had the best product team in the world. In some ways I thought they defined what modern product management is/was. Now I have no clue what they are thinking with their product launches as of late. All of their products (and marketing) invoke this conservative, risk-adverse blandness that tries to appeal to everyone and in turn appeals to no one.

I've never seen a consistent product vision from Google. What I see is a company that lets engineers spend a lot of time pursuing their interests, subsidized by the company's ad revenue.

Sometimes that results in products, but sometimes it results in multiple teams working on chat apps that never see the light of day, or Android being shipped with multiple SMS messaging applications at the same time, or that weird split between Gmail and Inbox. The money wasted must be tremendous.

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#314

Post by jonny_eh » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

hwbehrens wrote: post #252

danielbln wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want it, but I want the Netflix model. What I don't want is to buy games fullprice on their platform. Let me pay 10 bucks a month for a rich gaming catalog that I can play on anything from Mac, to phone to tablet and I'm going to use it.

I think it will take some time for an effective business model to evolve that works for games. Games don't exactly follow the lump-sum, zero maintenance model of movies, but they also don't work well with the SaaS treadmill either. Some games lock players in and absorb their time continuously (e.g. Overwatch, PUBG, WoW, etc), while others package a digestible block of content that can be consumed in 10, 20, 50 hours,…

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#315

Post by helen___keller » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

After all the bad PR I decided to sit down, put aside emotions, and honestly evaluate with myself how I felt about Stadia as a video gamer.

I realized that I actually would really like video game streaming. It would be really neat to pop open whatever game I'm playing on a tv in another room, or on a chromebook or some other non-gaming device.

The problem is Stadia also wants to control the game library and the hardware. I'm not okay with either of those. Really, I just want to stream from the ps4 in one room to the TV in the other room. And, I bet there's a way to do that already (going to look more into it later). Either way, it's not a multibillion dollar venture, so I think that's why google wants to be streaming, renting a computer, and owning your game library, all in one. I don't care about the other two services. I have hardware and I have game libraries.

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#316

Post by specialp » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #137

irrational wrote: post #4

Honestly, as soon as Google announces a new product, my first thought is to wonder how long until it is shut down. Google has completely lost my trust in relying on any of their products. Even when they come out and claim that this product will not be cancelled, for reals this time, pinky promise, etc. I simply can't believe them.

How much trust in longevity do you need to be willing to play a rented video game? > Even when they come out and claim that this product will not be cancelled, When has this happened? Has Google broken its contracts?

I suppose buying a $130 box that no longer works AT ALL because the cloud backing it and providing all of the functionality is gone isn't a reason to want longevity? It would be like buying a mobile phone locked to one network that fails. If Google were giving this away for free and charging monthly I'd agree. Welp service down, no more $10 a month from me, moving along.

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#317

Post by knodi123 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

gilrain wrote: post #118

The criticism of Google Stadia and the defense of its concept in this thread are correct. There is a successful future in cloud gaming and nobody denies that. However, it's extremely likely to be delivered by a company with both the technical chops and industry chops, including a deep existing library. Google only has one of those, and they didn't even nail the technical side convincingly. Look toward Microsoft or So…

> Look toward Microsoft or Sony instead

"Playstation Now" came out years ago. You can stream games, or you can cache the executable locally if you have a dodgy connection or want to go offline. And if I'm reading this correctly, you don't need to pay for the individual games, either - just the service.

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#318

Post by knodi123 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

rstupek wrote: post #308

gilrain wrote: post #118

The criticism of Google Stadia and the defense of its concept in this thread are correct. There is a successful future in cloud gaming and nobody denies that. However, it's extremely likely to be delivered by a company with both the technical chops and industry chops, including a deep existing library. Google only has one of those, and they didn't even nail the technical side convincingly. Look toward Microsoft or So…

My opinion is that Sony doesn't have the cloud chops to put something like that together.

They already did it five years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Now

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#319

Post by loriverkutya » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

adamzapasnik wrote: post #193

ProAm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cant rely on Google for anything long term.

Isn't it subscription based service anyway? Probably by the time they canceled the project, there would be a competition that you can move to.

Except you have to pay for the games too, not just the subscription. Probably when they shut it down you got your money back, maybe not. Time will tell.

Re: When will Google shut down Stadia?

#320

Post by modwilliam » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

aeturnum wrote: post #269

adamzapasnik wrote: post #123

Very surprised of general negative sentiment towards Stadia. Why is it like this? Because it's Google, the evil company? Seriously, if any startup launched it in its current state, people would be cheering and blaming it on a new tech/new challenges. But cause it's a very big corporation with top talent it means that they have to release top quality product every time? What the hell... I'm very excited about the proj…

>if any startup launched it in its current state, people would be cheering and blaming it on a new tech/new challenges I'd direct you to a review of Onlive, a previous startup doing exactly what you say[1]. The take away is exactly what I've heard about Stadia: "OnLive's streaming game system is a really cool concept, and the ability to access a library of games with no downloads, discs or storage worries is definite…

I hadn't heard of OnLive until there were comparisons to Stadia. On the other hand, Google is able to do some great first party advertising on YouTube.