Google Stadia: Thread 01

[MartyG]

That may be likely later on given you can steam via LAN, but for the moment Steam is only talking about third party partners, so that's editorial from PC Gamer rather than anything official from Steam. Either way, neither service is good news for Stadia's business model

[Digfox]

That may be likely later on given you can steam via LAN, but for the moment Steam is only talking about third party partners, so that's editorial from PC Gamer rather than anything official from Steam. Either way, neither service is good news for Stadia's business model

According to the statement a few days ago, it'll be a lot later but Valve's language point towards something bigger (as do all the rumours - it's not just PC Gamer's editorial). And this GeForce Now integration may be far from the finalised service. Of course things change and maybe Valve amend what they are working on etc. Valve must recognise the threat and the opportunity cloud streaming is.

And yes, Valve entering the market is not good for Google.

That said I suspect devs/pubs favor the Stadia way of doing business (i.e. you have to buy your games again) because they basically have said as much.

[MartyG]

That said I suspect devs/pubs favor the Stadia way of doing business (i.e. you have to buy your games again) because they basically have said as much.

Except that model is never work as why on earth would I pay for a game again just so I can stream it? One of the reasons Stadia is dying on its arse is there aren't enough people prepared to pay full retail price to Stream a game.

I can tell you right now I won't be doing that.

[Digfox]

Except that model is never work as why on earth would I pay for a game again just so I can stream it? One of the reasons Stadia is dying on its arse is there aren't enough people prepared to pay full retail price to Stream a game.

I can tell you right now I won't be doing that.

I don't disagree but you know how greedy these companies are. The flipside is that very few games are available on GeForce Now because devs/pubs won't support a service where they aren't getting paid. Stadia even if it is a commercial bomb has much more support.

It's an extra, not well documented, obstacle in front of cloud streaming taking off. Or at the very least is going to require cloud service platforms to 'pay' for content however they sell it back to the consumer.

[Neon Ignition]

Between PSNow, Stadia, GeForce Now and the low noise of xCloud it really does feel like streamed gaming is yet another of those 'future of gaming' concepts that isn't actually going to take off in a meaningful way. You can see why companies have pursued it but ultimately it's clear that they're still pursuing a 1:1 experience and even if they nail it they ultimately end up with something that offers no worthwhile tangible benefit for the end user. The existing scenario where MS uses it to run stuff on other devices and Sony uses it as a delivery method for older content on otherwise incompatible hardware increasingly feels like all it's going to deliver for at least the next entire generation.

[fishbowlhead]

Between PSNow, Stadia, GeForce Now and the low noise of xCloud it really does feel like streamed gaming is yet another of those 'future of gaming' concepts that isn't actually going to take off in a meaningful way. You can see why companies have pursued it but ultimately it's clear that they're still pursuing a 1:1 experience and even if they nail it they ultimately end up with something that offers no worthwhile tangible benefit for the end user. The existing scenario where MS uses it to run stuff on other devices and Sony uses it as a delivery method for older content on otherwise incompatible hardware increasingly feels like all it's going to deliver for at least the next entire generation.

Because its crap thats why it wont take off. Itle just end up being a free perk of owning your Sony/MS games that you’ve purchased already, maybe some other publishers as well.

People can’t work for free, thats not how anything at all works, devs need to be paid for their games not a few pennies by some pub for a stream.

[MartyG]

Until the laws of physics are changed, streaming is always going to be an inferior experience. The longer distance something has to travel, the more lag there is, the only thing you can do is move the thing you're streaming from closer as increasing bandwidth has a point of diminishing returns.

Now there's probably a stage at which for many people they no longer notice the lag and some folks say they see that with Stadia, but it's glaringly obvious to me that control input is woolier than on my gaming PC - it is without doubt a worse experience, not completely unplayable with every game, just irritatingly worse.

It's not alone; I've tried loads of them, OnLive, PSNow, XCloud, Stadia, GeForce Now even Steam streaming on the LAN. They are all various degrees of bad and all noticibly (at least to me) laggy compared to sitting in front of my local machine, even on the LAN streams. Compared to OnLive the new services are an improvement and PSNow's library is pretty impressive, something I was happy to pay £3 a month for, but expecting me to shell out £60 for a title and another £10 a month to access it properly - well they really must be sucking down those medicinal supplies.

That alone would be enough to not want to buy in to these as a sole means of accessing gaming, but along with the complete lack of ownership over anything, it is the killer blow.

As a supplimentary addition to access my game library or a cheap all-you-can eat service, fine, but I'm not giving up local hardware for Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo or anyone else.

[wakka]

I do find your impressions of these services interesting Marty, since you've tried all of them so comprehensively. I've always thought that when streaming gaming hits that crucial 'good enough' point, it will become the de facto way most people game. Trouble is it sounds like it's still a long way off reaching that point.

[Digfox]

I'm currently subscribed to PS Now. In the past few weeks I've been playing Daytona USA and Spec Ops (PS3 streaming to PS4). The experience has been really solid. I've tried xCloud, GeForce Now, LAN streaming from PS4 and Steam. I've not tried Stadia yet. And xCloud beta is the only one I've not been able to get to work adequately but I suspect that's my hardware.

I feel this is like the NES, MD and SNES mini conversations where some people (the more hard core) will not tolerate the lag and want a more authentic experience. That's fine but we are arguably already at the point where the tech is 'good enough' for a significant percentage of the market. The argument may be more around the business models.

Even at the start of this thread we said Sony and MS would have the best chance and I think that's still the case. PS Now and Game Pass will be hugely successful with cloud streaming build-in. The more apt conversation here will be how Google implemented Stadia, or indeed if they ever had a chance.

People can’t work for free, thats not how anything at all works, devs need to be paid for their games not a few pennies by some pub for a stream.

This is where GeForce Now's model was interesting. From a consumer POV it allowed people to take their existing PC purchase from Steam (or wherever) and pay to play on a Nvidia Cloud PC. The devs/pubs had already been 'paid'. Whether that's correct or not another conversation but it's the old 'greed' of businesses. Certain business models align well with streaming, for example f2p or subscriptions.

[MartyG]

I do find your impressions of these services interesting Marty, since you've tried all of them so comprehensively. I've always thought that when streaming gaming hits that crucial 'good enough' point, it will become the de facto way most people game. Trouble is it sounds like it's still a long way off reaching that point.

And for some folks that'll probably be true already.

Some people clearly don't notice the lag, either because they don't know better and have nothing to compare their experience to (i.e., have never user high precession input) or don't really care. It's also game specific, if the input response is slow in game anyway (and remember that input repsonse isn't generally tied to refresh rate anymore for the most part in modern gaming unless they're stuck in the past - yes I'm looking at you Fallout 76) it doesn't matter so much what the screen is doing in relation to input. Some folks are happy with 30 fps at 640x480 gaming and who am I to judge (fools), some folks are happy to buy loads of loot boxes (bigger fools).

Even using a pad on a PC compared to Stadia with their controller on Destiny 2, I could notice input lag - especially when turning left/right. It just feels less precise, more wooly, not instant. So try playing something like CS:Go or R6 Siege streamed and you've no hope of being competitive.

I tried Daytona USA on PS Now and had to quit the game, but I've been playing some of the RPGs from the PS3 era streamed that I missed out on originally and the experience was fine.

I don't think streaming is completely awful for all games, it's just inferior to the alternatives and always will be.

[Digfox]

Yea, although the other thing is that games that can only exist on cloud streaming, i.e. where the server and client are next to each other, just haven't been made. Everything is currently streaming existing games. I think that's one area where Stadia has failed, not doing something that can only be done with cloud streaming.

[MartyG]

Even then I'm not sure there's a true advantage or a significant advantage, you're still going to have to get that data to the end user's screen and register their input and that's still reliant on their ping. The main advantage is the anti-cheat, which is so prevelant in PC gaming it's not funny any more.

If Stadia had actually delivered on some of those early promises like drop in gaming from watching a YouTube video for example, then at least they'd have had a unique selling point. As it is, companies are still overhyping cloud gaming - ultimately all this is is simply someone elses's PC running on a remote network. There's really nothing new to this tech or some massive "Powah of teh cloud" as some corporations had been previously boasting (and have now gone distinctly quiet about).

In fact, I'd suggest transitioning to gaming from watching YouTube would have given Stadia a massive boost, given the reach YouTube has.

[Digfox]

There's definitely things you can do with the cloud, that you can't do on local hardware, but whether they are worthwhile is moot because we've never seen it. It's like releasing VR without VR games.

But I agree, Stadia haven't delivered even on things they said they could. Actually dropping in on Youtube streams is a great USP, something existing solutions can't do. But it's nowhere to be seen.

[wakka]

Yeah, if they'd rounded up a bunch of streamers and made it so viewers could queue to jump into their games, that would've been cool. When a used Xbox or PS4 can be add for <£150 and has exactly the same software, plus a much larger library, plus cheaper games, there's just no reason to use Stadia. They must've known they were sending it out to die.

[gambit6613]

I've been using the Geforce Now system for the past few months, and so far it has been just about flawless for me, occasinally i get the odd lag spike but nothing major and thats generally only over WiFi, when using ethernet its very stable. The only really annoying feature was with the free sub model you can only play for 1 hour at a time and have to restart the game after said hour. It was a pain in evenings because it often involved waiting for access. But i now have the Founders tier, £5 or so per month and i dont actually pay anything until August. My PC is pretty crap these days and i cant run much modern games at all.

Best part of it i have found is i can play games on my desktop and as its all cloud saving, i can move onto my 10 year old laptop and sit in the conservertory and continue playing. Quite amazing seeing 10 year old laptop running Assassins Creed Odyssey at max settings and with no fan noise as its not really doing anything.