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"Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

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Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but then you've probably already invested in some game pc/console. not one of the mythical people referenced here

Yes, but I can see myself considering streaming services when it's time to replace it. I don't need a €2k+ machine most of the time. I could buy quite a few years of streaming service with the saved cash.

If you spent €2k+ on a gaming PC you're definitely not in the casual crowd.

(Or you've got a lot of disposable income I guess)

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern? I travel for work or for vacation. If for work, I'm there hitting "Spit money out for me" at an ATM. Not gaming. I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan to enjoy home time more. End of days is visiting restaurants/bars and either socializing or schmoozing c…

Some of us vacation to relax in our own way. I like to go to Vegas because I find it enjoyable to gamble, chill at the pools in Mandalay Bay, and day drink. If I've hit my cap for those things for the day and I'm still awake I'd much rather spend the remainder of my waking hours playing games than pretending I want to see yet another Cirque show. This isn't a defense of Stadia, mind you. Just that vacation can mean d…

Hey, when I first visited Vegas, landed at noon, drunk by 2, vomiting by 4, asleep by 5, woke up with a hangover at 10. First time I went from sober, to drunk to hungover in the same calendar day. Fat Tuesdays margaritas man... so good... but will knock you clean the fuck out like Tyson.

But... seriously though... I like video games too. But not that much. The whole escape reality, I get it. I enjoy it too. But, if you are escaping reality more often than you are in it... that's a problem.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make sense that a computer at home, with 5% utilization and retail power prices, can be less per hour than a computer with 50% utilization and wholesale power? Even if all you do is host single-user machines with retail games installed and some kind of imaging solution, it seems like it should pay off.

one more detail regarding cloud utilization. It might not be what you think it is. Game playing activity peaks roughly at the same time during a day, mainly in the evening. Basically you need to launch one vm per user during that time. And those vms will be idle during the day time. Sure, due to time differences, those vms can be used by other people from a different time zone. But the further the data center is, the…

On top of all that, Google has said that they plan to roll out over 7500 edge computing clusters just for Stadia, all for tackling the latency problem. (Not clear if those clusters can be put in existing Google facilities or not.) Having so many edge clusters runs counter to the ability to amortize costs by ensuring fully subscribed hardware usage. Each edge cluster will be as costly as the required peak usage for each location. And I imagine Stadia will have a very distinct pattern of peaks and troughs of usage relative to local time.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#414
post #2

Stadia exists because Google wants to create more opportunities to show video advertising. What better way to do this than to turn games into another type of streaming video. Pre-roll before the game starts, mid-roll in between levels. When players stream games to other views, more pre-roll before they watch.

There are no ads on Stadia nor have they announced that there would be. You currently have to pay full price for their games, I don't see how you can just shove ads into them.

Maybe in the future if they offer a subscription but right now your comment is just guessing at the future intent of a newly launched product.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not well known but AT&T and Nvidia partnered to use hardware encoding/decoding (Shield) and fiber internet with compute at the last mile and they still couldn’t make a product that wasn’t laggy and have distracting artifacts. I am sorry to say Google‘s demonstration was more of the same and customers will not overlook this. Imagine how bad VR titles would get you motion sick with all of that latency and compress…

It depends on where you're located. With FiOS in NYC I can get to AWS Virginia in 18ms. I don't have any Google Cloud servers to test with. When I use Steam/NVidia in home streaming with my GTX 1080 card, I can render a 1080p frame in about 10-12ms and decode it in 10ms on my 4K FireTV. (I beat Witcher 3, TombRaider, and Hitman with it over a 50Mbit powerline ethernet setup and they all looked fine BTW.) Even if the…

>It's also not a good sign that they're not talking about avoiding wifi for your connection the way Steam does.

At the very least, they send an email full of tips to everyone that buys one, where the top-most/first block mentions a wired connection makes a big difference over wireless.

Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/4XsvdDN.png

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because xyz-as-a-service is anti-consumer. Unless you've been under a rock the past decade, there are many flaws with the model when it comes to consumers. It's great for business. Terrible for the user. As-a-service puts the consumer at the mercy of a company. Along with their privacy data. Steam at least is setup in a way where if they were to end, the games you have can be downloaded and unlocked. Just make sure t…

I'm torn. Xbox game pass for PC is one of the greatest things to happen to gaming. Ps now let me play red dead 1 before #2 came out. EA access is great if you just want to play battlefield or Fifa for a month (those games don't typically last longer than that for me). But I also love my 500+ steam games. If these services keep getting better they'll definitely take over, though. Outer Worlds on Xbox pass comes to min…

Okay, but that's a little different. Stadia, you have to buy the game retail.

Ps now (I have a ps4), 10 bucks a month to play how many different games when the hell ever I want. It totally works out for me because I normally don't care about most games after 10 hours of gameplay. I don't want to buy a game for $60 bucks and not actually have it. Generally, I don't buy a game until it's down to like $30, because I don't have to play anything immediately. At 32, I'm over the whole "ER MY GOD, I have to play this game right meow!"

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#417
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW Hearthstone calibre games are already playable on any moderately recent smartphone. Not much gain from Stadia in that regard.

The word "calibre" is doing a lot of work in your sentence. There are all sorts of seemingly low-resource-intensive, low-latency, even old games of that "calibre" that stutter on my Macbook Pro.

That's more of an indictment of how bad Apple computers are at handling games.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#418

"Gamers" don't want Stadia. And all the negative reviews of Stadia are by people who already have console/gaming PCs. It's targeted for those that don't have either, like me. I carry my Pixelbook everywhere and would be nice to play games on it. I don't want another device to carry around and don't have the time or patience to wait for patches/updates or the ridiculous storage requirements games have nowadays. The on…

I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern? I travel for work or for vacation. If for work, I'm there hitting "Spit money out for me" at an ATM. Not gaming. I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan to enjoy home time more. End of days is visiting restaurants/bars and either socializing or schmoozing c…

Vacation is the only time I game. Wonder how Stadia plays on the plane.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#419

I want Stadia. I've read reviews yesterday and was amazed by the lack of a long term vision from the reviewers. If Google doesn't drop the ball (which is a huge if knowing the company's history), Stadia makes a lot of sense. I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, the cheapest way to do that as I don't have a console nor an expensive computer is Stadia. And when I will want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Stadia will be the ch…

I want to like Stadia but I can't, not in its current form.

I'm a bit weary to shell out $60 for a game that I may or may not have access to a few years from now when the service is shut down or something.

Now, if the Stadia license came with a Steam key for the same price, that would be really different. I would have a fallback to play games I bought in a "traditional" way.

Re: "Google Stadia is not a product that exists because people want it"

#420
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of assumptions with a clear bias there. Just because you don't want this model for games, doesn't mean nobody does. I tried Stadia with Assassin's Creed in the Alpha and it was a wonderfully low bar to entry. I was able to play the new Assassin's Creed on my Macbook. There's a lot of value to that.

Yes, i am biased against losing control over my computer and the games and software i can run on it and mess around with (be it modding, programing, custom patches or whatever). And i do see it through the potential of things going bad because if things go perfect then everything is fine. I focus on the bad side because i do not want the bad things to happen and i see the bad things way worse than the good things.

I run Linux and LineageOS because I care about controlling my computers and data. But I don't care about games.

They're games. They're not important. They're not art worth preserving. It's just a little entertainment. A risk of "losing" a game that I would probably not play again anyway is a perfectly reasonable trade-off for a hassle free gaming experience.

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