It has been a few days since Google announced "Stadia". I was excited ... there had been rumours.
So they officially announced it - we know what it is ... sort of how it works but not much else.
I'm trying a new format for videos. Maybe it's my aching for the old Hangouts days, but here's me in my van giving you my thoughts:
In case you missed it, you can watch the video again here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUih5C5rOrA (I'll embed it below)
But, in case you couldn't bear to watch me talk here's my thoughts in text form:
First off, let's talk about the branding of the name "Stadia". It's perfect. We watch our sports in areas called arenas, Coliseums (eh?), and Stadiums... Stadia gives it that sense of plurality (it is the correct Latin plural of a stadium) so that there's something going on for a LOT of people. That's foreboding awesome.
The holy grail of being able to play all these games without having a physical box is awesome. When I went to university we all loved Miniclip games online. Nothing powerful, but we didn't have to have some Miniclip box that was plugged into a TV to work. Anybody, anywhere, with internet can connect to the game box and tell it to play and it'll stream what's happening to the monitor. How awesome is that?
I struggle to comprehend the workings required to do that. It'd be like my friend owning the Xbox and then running REAAALLLYY long cables for the controller and video to my house from his. But the magic is his box can play multiple games at once, and all my friends can connect to it too... and at the same time ... and different games.
Brilliant. Having a controller that literally would just connect to the game server via Wifi and then that controls what happens and we see what happens via a Chrome browser (or Chromecast etc...). No specialized hardware. My son was excited to think that he could play Fortnite on even his old Chromebook (probably not, as Epic has their own game service... would they put it on both?).
Then there's the cool feature of being able to have the game you're playing be broadcasted to Youtube for your content. No special capture card, no clunky screencapturing software ... just works simply.
Now, that's WHAT will happen. The 'how' it will happen is curious and there are no real bits of information to glean from any discussion since on how it will roll out before the end of 2019.
What I'm hoping to hear discussion on will be whether it's going to be a full-on subscription service or will it be a pay-per-use or just use what you've paid for.
Think of it like... well:
Option A - similar to Google Play Books. Everybody can have the app for free, but if you want to read something you have to buy it. But once it's paid you can read it on any device that connects to your account. Will there be an option to 'upload' your own content? Probably not... who knows.
Option B - similar to Netflix. You have access to ANYTHING you want on the platform, so long as you pay your membership fees.
Option C - you pay for what you want to use when you use it. So more like a rental model... you can play this game for the next 24 hours or ... something.
And who knows, maybe there's a blend in there, undoubtedly there's going to be purchasable content and upgrades too...
The secret to success is going to come in from what it will cost you to play. Nobody wants to keep having extra fees upon extra fees. Let alone, the content within will have to be 'worth it' (which devs will put games on there, obviously certain devs will be swayed by the consoles to have console exclusives.
Then there's the elephant in the room about Google's track record for its 'sticktoitiveness'. I won't even get into that as there are all kinds of butthurt going on, especially as they'd announced this while they're shuttering Google+. le sigh
Whatever happens, I'm excited. 2019 is going to be a long year waiting it out.
What are your thoughts about Stadia? Will you like their controller, or use your own? What would you pay for a subscription model?
The holy grail of being able to play all these games without having a physical box is awesome. When I went to university we all loved Miniclip games online. Nothing powerful, but we didn't have to have some Miniclip box that was plugged into a TV to work. Anybody, anywhere, with internet can connect to the game box and tell it to play and it'll stream what's happening to the monitor. How awesome is that?
I struggle to comprehend the workings required to do that. It'd be like my friend owning the Xbox and then running REAAALLLYY long cables for the controller and video to my house from his. But the magic is his box can play multiple games at once, and all my friends can connect to it too... and at the same time ... and different games.
Brilliant. Having a controller that literally would just connect to the game server via Wifi and then that controls what happens and we see what happens via a Chrome browser (or Chromecast etc...). No specialized hardware. My son was excited to think that he could play Fortnite on even his old Chromebook (probably not, as Epic has their own game service... would they put it on both?).
Then there's the cool feature of being able to have the game you're playing be broadcasted to Youtube for your content. No special capture card, no clunky screencapturing software ... just works simply.
Now, that's WHAT will happen. The 'how' it will happen is curious and there are no real bits of information to glean from any discussion since on how it will roll out before the end of 2019.
What I'm hoping to hear discussion on will be whether it's going to be a full-on subscription service or will it be a pay-per-use or just use what you've paid for.
Think of it like... well:
Option A - similar to Google Play Books. Everybody can have the app for free, but if you want to read something you have to buy it. But once it's paid you can read it on any device that connects to your account. Will there be an option to 'upload' your own content? Probably not... who knows.
Option B - similar to Netflix. You have access to ANYTHING you want on the platform, so long as you pay your membership fees.
Option C - you pay for what you want to use when you use it. So more like a rental model... you can play this game for the next 24 hours or ... something.
And who knows, maybe there's a blend in there, undoubtedly there's going to be purchasable content and upgrades too...
The secret to success is going to come in from what it will cost you to play. Nobody wants to keep having extra fees upon extra fees. Let alone, the content within will have to be 'worth it' (which devs will put games on there, obviously certain devs will be swayed by the consoles to have console exclusives.
Then there's the elephant in the room about Google's track record for its 'sticktoitiveness'. I won't even get into that as there are all kinds of butthurt going on, especially as they'd announced this while they're shuttering Google+. le sigh
Whatever happens, I'm excited. 2019 is going to be a long year waiting it out.
What are your thoughts about Stadia? Will you like their controller, or use your own? What would you pay for a subscription model?