10 Things Google Didn't Tell You About Stadia

Welcome to MojoPlays, and we have quite a few questions for Google’s new gaming platform! If you have somehow found a way to live without social media or electronics, Google recently revealed its new gaming/stream service, Google Stadia. Pricing This was the first thing on our minds once Google ended the conference. Not one time did they specify anything regarding pricing! Or if it was going to be a digital storefront or a subscription service. Granted, we have a feeling it’ll be the subscription model, but it’s probably going to be more expensive than Google’s other products (i.e. Drive’s storage plans). On top of that, we also have to keep in mind that the prices of games most likely won’t change. Given that most gamers are paying for Nintendo Online, PlayStation Plus, and Xbox Gold, Google needs to find that sweet spot to get players on board. It’ll certainly prove a challenge since the aforementioned services provide a bevy of benefits to justify their prices. International Rollout Google announced that Stadia will be available in the United States, Canada, and most of Europe sometime this year. Did anyone else get the feeling like someone was missing? Japan? … South Korea? …. China? Those countries have some of the biggest gaming audiences in the world, so omitting them from launch is a big headscratcher from a business perspective. No mention either for India, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia though granted, some of those countries internet speeds may not be ready to support Stadia yet! Maybe they want to dip their toes in the water in North American and Europe before expanding worldwide, but it still would be nice to know when our friends across the globe can get their hands on Stadia. Latency This is a major issue that plagues streaming services as well as online games, and is cited as the main reason why previous game streaming service “OnLive” failed. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, your latency is the amount of time it takes for a system respond after inputting a command. While Google showed strong results during their Project Stream trial run, it’s important to note that Google handpicked who could try the service. Results will be vastly different once the service is available to the broad public. So, how badly is this going to affect the latency? Unless Google can answer this question, we may just have to wait until launch. Bandwidth Requirements During their test period for Project Stream, the service recommended an average connection of 25 Megabits per second, which is huge, and lots of households aren’t there yet. However in an interview with Kotaku, Phil Harrison simultaneously said that Google has rapidly improved image compression technology which would reduce that 25 Megabit requirement, but also said that 4K streaming would push the requirement back up to 30 Megabits. Granted, not everyone has a 4K TV, so those people who are still using 720p and 1080p screens would really like to have a more specific answer for this one. Game Preservation A video game streaming service sounds great and all, but while streaming services could potentially prevent piracy and illegal cheating, it also creates a bigger problem in game preservation. Many games have fallen victim to getting lost in the digital aether, Licensed games such as the re-release of “The Simpsons” arcade game and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game” “Transformers: Devastation” and “Deadpool” are no longer in digital stores due to licensing issues. So, what’s going to happen to games that are only available on Stadia and end up getting delisted? It’s a very niche problem, yes, but a problem nonetheless. Effects on the Competition Google came out swinging for the fences when they were showing off Stadia! This is a gaming platform that can boot up games with seconds, requires no downloading or installations, and is free of any expensive hardware limitations that both PC and console gaming faces. With such promising features, what does that mean for the other platforms? Well Microsoft and EA are both preparing their own cloud gaming service, but with Stadia having dedicated YouTube support, they’ll need to provide some strong features of their own. On top of that, Valve and Epic will both have to buckle down and show casual gamers why their stores are the better option. And finally Sony and Nintendo might need to restructure PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Online in order to compete with Google. As for the future of consoles? It’s unlikely they’ll disappear anytime soon, but they will have to adapt to sell well. Games at Launch So far, Google has a solid showing of support from third-party studios. So far we have “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey”, “Doom: Eternal” “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” and the “NBA 2K” games. but the major question is: What other games are going to be available at launch? And when will they be available? Google says they will have more details to share in June, and hopefully, they’ll reveal a good launch lineup. Japanese Titles As we mentioned before, Japan is one of the biggest countries for the gaming industry. With Stadia not being available in Asia, this poses a big problem for fans of Japanese studios. It certainly doesn’t help that many popular game franchises, like “Final Fantasy”, “Resident Evil” “Devil May Cry” and even “Pac-Man”, are made in Japan. If Stadia won’t be accessible to developers in Japan at launch, does that mean Japanese titles won’t be available either? Google is going to need the best of Western games to make their platform appealing. Exclusive Titles Third-party support isn’t enough for a gaming platform to survive, even if your platform doesn’t have a box. You’re going to need a good amount of exclusives that give people a reason to jump aboard. “Super Mario Bros.” “Halo”, “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, these were all amazing titles that sold their consoles at launch. Hopefully, Google’s first-party studio, “Stadia Games & Entertainment”, has something in development that isn’t a tech demo. What we hope they DON’T do is resort to timed 3rd party exclusives, especially following the controversy surrounding “Metro: Exodus” and recently “The Outer Worlds” locked to the Epic Store on PC. Don’t do that please Google! Google @ E3 Let’s be honest; E3 is going to be insanely weird this year, with EA not having a press conference (Hurray!) and Sony will be absent as well! (Oh God Dammit!) If Google wants to roll with the big boys at Nintendo, Bethesda, and Ubisoft, they’re going to have to show a strong hand at the poker table that is the gaming industry. With two major players missing this year, Google has the perfect opportunity to demonstrate a strong lineup of future titles as well as giving the public more details.