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Introducing Stadia - Google's New Gaming Platform

itsupthere said:
I ain't gonna lie, I didn't even give it a shot.


Could've bought one, but it didn't even spark my interest like the PS4 or PS5.
Click to expand...
If they not making their own games then what’s the point? Ps5 and Nintendo got games only available on their system. If stadia got all the 3rd party games then u got a better option with Sony to get the same games plus exclusive or with Nintendo to get their exclusives
 
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Resident Evil Village is coming to Stadia, and Google will give you free hardware if you buy this version

This offer is running through May 21st
By Taylor Lyles@TayNixster Mar 22, 2021, 11:00am EDT


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We already knew that Resident Evil Village will release on a slew of platforms, including the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S. And today, Google announced that the game will also arrive on Stadia. To encourage you to buy this version, Google will throw in a free Stadia Premiere kit to anyone who preorders Resident Evil Village before May 21st. The promotion is available for both the Standard and Deluxe Editions of Resident Evil Village, which cost $60 and $70, respectively.

Normally priced at $100, Google’s Stadia Premiere Edition features a white Stadia controller, a Chromecast Ultra, and, for new users, a one-month trial subscription to Stadia’s Pro-tier service. Stadia Pro includes 4K streaming and a growing collection of free games, similar to Sony’s PlayStation Plus service.
GOOGLE HAD A SIMILAR PROMOTION LAST YEAR

Google had a similar promotion last year when it offered complimentary hardware if you preordered the Stadia version of Cyberpunk 2077. The Resident Evil Village promotion announcement comes at an interesting time as Stadia’s future looks questionable. In February, Google shut down its internal Stadia development studio. That same month, reports from Bloomberg and Wired shed light on some of the tech giant’s failures in building its cloud gaming platform.

Before Resident Evil Village arrives on May 7th, Google also announced today that Stadia Pro members can redeem a free copy of Resident Evil 7 Gold Edition when the game launches on the cloud gaming service on April 1st.

www.theverge.com

Resident Evil Village is coming to Stadia, and Google will give you free hardware if you buy this version

Preorder the Stadia version of Resident Evil Village and receive a free Stadia Premiere kit.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
Google Stadia is coming to Chromecast with Google TV and Android TV on June 23rd

Official Android TV support is on the way
By Tom Warren@tomwarren Jun 7, 2021, 12:00pm EDT

googlestadiaandroidtv.0.jpg


Google is expanding the availability of its Stadia game streaming service to more TVs and streaming devices later this month. The first version of Stadia on Chromecast with Google TV is launching on June 23rd, more than eight months after the device launched without official Stadia support.
Alongside Chromecast with Google TV support, Stadia will also be available on a number of Android TV devices on June 23rd. Not every Android TV device is supported, but Nvidia’s Shield TV devices have made the list. Here’s the official support list:
  • Chromecast with Google TV
  • Hisense Android Smart TVs (U7G, U8G, U9G)
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Nvidia Shield TV Pro
  • Onn FHD Streaming Stick and UHD Streaming Device
  • Philips 8215, 8505, and OLED 935 / 805 Series Android TVs
  • Xiaomi MIBOX3 and MIBOX4
If you don’t see your Android TV device listed, you may still be able to get Stadia running. You can opt into experimental support to play Stadia, just by installing the Stadia app from the Play Store and hitting continue on the opt-in screen. Android TV devices will need a compatible Bluetooth controller or Google’s own Stadia Controller to play Stadia.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522416/google-stadia-chromecast-tv-nvidia-shield-android-devices-list-date
 
Google slashes Stadia’s revenue share to try to attract developers

A 15 percent cut of sales up to $3 million
By Jay Peters@jaypeters Jul 13, 2021, 1:16pm EDT


akrales_191113_3779_0284.0.jpg

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google is revising how much of a cut it takes from Stadia games in a bid to try to attract more developers. Starting on October 1st, Google will take 15 percent of sales up to $3 million through the end of 2023.

With the change, Google seems to be trying to make its cloud gaming platform a more enticing option for developers — a proposition that has likely become much harder since the company shut down its own in-house studios. Google has also tried offering exclusive games to try to bring developers on board (which it presumably paid hefty sums to acquire), but many of those games have since been released on other platforms.

The news comes as revenue shares between developers and platform holders have come under intense scrutiny as of late. Google’s change with Stadia isn’t the first it’s made recently for its stores: the company reduced its Play Store cut to 15 percent for a developer’s first $1 million in annual revenue in March. That move followed a similar one from Apple in November, which announced that developers who earn less than $1 million per year on the App Store would qualify for a program where Apple would take a 15 percent cut of their revenues instead of the standard 30 percent fee.

Tuesday’s news was announced at the Google for Games Developer Summit. As part of the event, on Monday, Google announced that Android 12 will let you play games as you’re downloading them.

www.theverge.com

Google slashes Stadia’s revenue share to try to attract developers

Another bid to try to bring developers on board.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
That's not good sign.

They had a good concept. But if these developers are designing games that you can on other platforms...then what makes Stadia different?

Thats what they gotta figure out. How can you be even more different from a PS...Xbox...Switch...PC.
 
Stadia offering free Chromecast Ultra and controller w/ $60 game purchase

Kyle Bradshaw
- Sep. 30th 2021 10:15 am PT

stadia_premiere_edition_2.jpg


The latest promotion from Google Stadia offers a free Chromecast Ultra and Stadia Controller with the purchase of any $59.99 game from the streaming service.

To celebrate Stadia hitting the milestone of over 200 games available in the store, Google has launched a new promotion to give away Stadia Premiere Edition bundles. Available since Stadia’s launch in 2019, the Premiere Edition includes a Chromecast Ultra and the official Stadia Controller, allowing you to play on your TV at home – in 4K at that. Of course, the Chromecast Ultra can be used for more than just Stadia, thanks to the wealth of Cast compatible apps on Android and iOS.

To participate, all you need to do is purchase a game or game bundle that costs $59.99 or more between now and October 10. For an example of a game bundle, Rage 2 is currently only $39.99 in the Stadia store, but the game’s Deluxe Edition is $59.99 and therefore should qualify for the deal. This includes the wealth of recent releases like Madden NFL 22, FIFA 22, and Life is Strange: True Colors.

Additionally, you can qualify for the promotion by pre-ordering a game, but the selection for that is severely limited, as the terms state that the game has to release by October 10. Between the minimum price requirement and the date cutoff, your only pre-order option for this promo is Far Cry 6.

A few days after you’ve made your qualifying purchase for the deal, you’ll receive a redemption code to get the Stadia Premiere Edition bundle with Chromecast Ultra and Stadia Controller for free from the Google Store. In some cases, you’ll still need to pay the shipping cost, but this is significantly cheaper than buying the $79.99 bundle outright.

This is far from the first time that Stadia has offered a free controller and Chromecast Ultra to those who make a purchase. Ahead of the launches of both Cyberpunk 2077 and Resident Evil: Village, Google offered a Stadia Premiere Edition to those pre-ordered. Meanwhile, the bundle has also been used for outreach, being given to customers of YouTube Premium, Verizon, and AT&T.

9to5google.com

Stadia offering free Chromecast Ultra and controller w/ $60 game purchase

The latest promotion from Google Stadia offers a free Chromecast Ultra and Stadia Controller with the purchase of any $59.99 game.
9to5google.com 9to5google.com
 

Amazon Luna – Cloud Gaming Service

Introducing Luna, Amazon’s cloud gaming service where it’s easy to play great games on devices you already own. No waiting for lengthy downloads—just play.
www.amazon.com

I didn't know Amazon had their own gaming service to. Has anyone checked this out yet?
 
Man they are literally trying to give this shit away for free at this point lol. Got a free 3 month trial of it and decided to try it and its cool. Dont really care for it tho as once im in the house i have my systems but i can see it having some good uses if u travel alot or something idk. Im not huge fan of cellphone gaming and if its not using wifi the connection is ass.
 
EXCLUSIVE: Google is trying to salvage its failing Stadia game service with a new focus on striking deals with Peloton, Bungie, and others under the brand 'Google Stream'
Hugh Langley
9 hours ago
Phil Harrison, vice president and GM, Google Stadia


  • A year ago, Google announced it would close its internal Stadia game studios.
  • It has since worked to land white-label deals with partners such as Bungie and Peloton.
  • Increased consolidation of the gaming market poses challenges to Google's plan.
When Google announced last year that it was shutting down its internal gaming studios, it was seen as a blow to the company's big bet on video games. Google, whose Stadia cloud service was barely more than a year old, said it would instead focus on publishing games from existing developers on the platform and explore other ways to bring Stadia's technology to partners.

Since then, the company has shifted the focus of its Stadia division largely to securing white-label deals with partners that include Peloton, Capcom, and Bungie, according to people familiar with the plans.

Google is trying to salvage the underlying technology, which is capable of broadcasting high-definition games over the cloud with low latency, shopping the technology to partners under a new name: Google Stream. (Stadia was known in development as "Project Stream.")

The Stadia consumer platform, meanwhile, has been deprioritized within Google, insiders said, with a reduced interest in negotiating blockbuster third-party titles. The focus of leadership is now on securing business deals for Stream, people involved in those conversations said. The changes demonstrate a strategic shift in how Google, which has invested heavily in cloud services, sees its gaming ambitions.

Last year, Google entered conversations with Peloton to be a back-end provider for games running on the fitness company's bikes, three people familiar with the situation said. Peloton unveiled the first of those games, titled "Lanebreak," in summer and ran a closed demo late last year that was supported by Google's technology.

Google last year also pitched its technology to Bungie, the developer behind the "Destiny" franchise, which was exploring a streaming platform of its own, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Under the proposal, Bungie would own the content and control the front-end experience, but Google would power the technology that beamed the games to users' screens.

Talks between Google and Bungie made "considerable" headway, according to a person familiar with the plans. Sony, which owns PlayStation, announced this week that it would acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion. While Bungie said it would continue to support Stadia, insiders did not know if the merger would affect plans between Google and Bungie. Sony has a deal with Microsoft to support its cloud gaming service. A spokesperson for Bungie did not respond to a request for comment.

Google has closed at least one deal: In October, AT&T began letting customers stream the game "Batman: Arkham Knight" directly from their web browser. While Google's branding was nowhere to be seen, AT&T confirmed the game was running on the Stadia technology.

The company has discussed a similar deal with Capcom, the publisher of the popular "Resident Evil" franchise, in which Capcom would run demos for new titles on its website powered by Google's tech, insiders said.

Google Stadia
A good internet connection enables Stadia to process high-quality graphics. INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images
Google has continued to prop up the Stadia consumer platform with a steady stream of titles. After Google closed Stadia's internal game studios, known as Stadia Games & Entertainment, insiders said the directive was to build out what was internally dubbed a "content flywheel" — a steady flow of independent titles and content from existing publishing deals that would be much more affordable than securing AAA blockbusters, two former employees familiar with the conversations said.

"The key thing was that they would not be spending the millions on the big titles," one said. "And exclusives would be out of the question."

Executives and employees for the Stadia product have also shifted roles. Phil Harrison, the former PlayStation executive Google tapped to run its gaming operations, now reports to the company's head of subscriptions.

Patrick Seybold, a Google spokesperson, told Insider in a statement: "We announced our intentions of helping publishers and partners deliver games directly to gamers last year, and have been working toward that. The first manifestation has been our partnership with AT&T who is offering Batman: Arkham Knight available to their customers for free.

"While we won't be commenting on any rumors or speculation regarding other industry partners, we are still focused on bringing great games to Stadia in 2022. With 200+ titles currently available, we expect to have another 100+ games added to the platform this year, and currently have 50 games available to claim in Stadia Pro."
 
Phil Harrison pitched Stadia as 'the future of gaming.' Now, he's trying to save it.

Google wasn't the first company to move into cloud gaming, but it pitched Stadia as a revolutionary platform, capable of pumping AAA titles to users' living rooms and portable devices without expensive hardware. The experience would be seamless: Someone could watch a game being played on YouTube and jump into it with the click of a button, as long as they had a good internet connection.

Stadia's core technology has been widely praised — even as the platform it supports gets tepid reviews — and Google is trying to extract as much value from it as it can. Internally, some employees have floated the idea of using Google's technology for nongaming purposes, such as 3D modeling and other high-intensity tasks that could be performed over the cloud.

But the pivot in strategy also led to a stream of employees exiting Stadia last year, including executives. Jack Buser, Stadia's former director for games, moved to Google's cloud unit in September. Teddy Keefe, Stadia's partnerships manager for the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa region, left Google last month.

In summer, after Google closed its internal game studios, the Stadia division was reorganized under the subscriptions and services section of Google's devices group. Harrison, who previously reported directly to Rick Osterloh, the devices and services chief, now reports to Jason Rosenthal, Google's vice president of subscription services, two people familiar said.

Harrison has also moved back to his home of London. He had been in California since 2018, working from Google's Mountain View headquarters.

Google's 2018 hiring of Harrison, a PlayStation and Xbox veteran, signaled the search giant was preparing to make a big splash in video games. He joined Google CEO Sundar Pichai onstage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco the following year to unveil Stadia, promising users access to to a library of exclusives and established franchises that would all be beamed over the cloud.

But when Stadia launched just a few months later, it was missing several key features. Bloomberg reported that there were tensions between employees who wanted to present Stadia as a beta test and leaders who wanted to follow a more traditional console launch.

Google also struggled to hold on to users. Harrison and other executives set a goal to reach 1 million monthly active users by the end of 2020, which they missed by about 25%, according to a person familiar with the conversations. "Retention was a real problem," this person said.

Meanwhile, Google was operating in an increasingly challenging industry. When Microsoft announced in 2020 that it would acquire the "Elder Scrolls" studio Bethesda, it "scared the crap out of Google executives," a former employee close to those conversations said. After Stadia shuttered its in-house games division, insiders said any appetite among Google executives to own any studios completely went away. It also had trouble luring studios to develop for the platform; some gaming execs previously told Insider that Google would offer rates "so low that it wasn't even part of the conversation."

Consolidation in the industry has continued. This month, Microsoft announced it would also buy Activision, the creator of the "Call of Duty" franchise, for $68.7 billion. The mammoth merger — the biggest ever in video games — takes yet another major publisher off the field. PlayStation's CEO said after its purchase of Bungie that the industry would likely make more high-profile acquisitions.

Google continues to bolster the Stadia consumer platform with new games but few that are on the AAA level gamers were promised, and some customers have grown frustrated by what they see as a lack of communication from Google.

The company spent tens of millions of dollars early on to secure blockbuster titles for Stadia, including Rockstar Games' "Red Dead Redemption 2." Last year, Rockstar released a remastered version of three of its older "Grand Theft Auto" titles across multiple platforms. There has been no mention of the game coming to Stadia.

Increased consolidation in the market risks squeezing Stadia's consumer platform and could make it harder for the company to spark deals with large game developers and publishers for games on Stadia and white-label opportunities.

"The Stadia cloud tech is great. The question is how to make that tech work for partner publishers that may not want to develop their own tech but also wish to have its own branded service," Mat Piscatella, an NPD analyst, said. "But the big questions are how many of those publishers will there be if and when cloud gets mass-market traction and how could the economics work?"

Current and former employees said the priority was now on proof-of-concept work for Google Stream and securing white-label deals. One estimated about 20% of the focus was on the consumer platform.

"There are plenty of people internally who would love to keep it going, so they are working really hard to make sure it doesn't die," they said. "But they're not the ones writing the checks."

Are you a current or former Google employee? Got a tip? Contact reporter Hugh Langley at [email protected] or via the encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram at +1 628-228-1836. Reach out using a nonwork device.

www.businessinsider.com

Inside Google's last-ditch effort to save its failing Stadia game service

Insiders say Google has shifted its gaming ambitions to focus on deals with names such as Peloton in an effort to save Stadia's underlying technology.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
 
Google Stadia is subtly reinventing itself to attract new games and gamers

Less friction, more white-labeling

By Sean Hollister@StarFire2258 Mar 15, 2022, 12:00pm EDT


stadia.0.jpg
Image: Google

Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service didn’t stick the landing, and it’s been a rough ride since. But today, at the Google for Games Developer Summit, it feels like Stadia might be moving in a promising direction — one that gives both gamers and game developers a reason to pay attention. And the magic word is “free.” Free demos, free trials, free for developers to offer, and hopefully free of the friction that made Stadia a difficult investment to start.

I want to start off with something I wrote last February, when I explained how Google had drastically reduced its Stadia ambitions from what was effectively “become a game company” to “offer a white-label service to game publishers” instead. I wrote:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with white-labeling.
Done properly, it might even unlock one of the most magical things about cloud gaming: the ability to instantly try a game no matter where you are. While companies like Google already claim games are “instantly available,” what they really mean is “after you sign up, log in, and sometimes buy a game.” That’s partly due to the complex web of licensing agreements that game publishers make cloud services sign. But if game publishers were in charge of their own games, they might feel differently. They could give you Gaikai-esque instant access game demos again, ones where you could tap a YouTube advertisement for a game and actually start playing it, no friction whatsoever.
Click to expand...
Everything Google is announcing today points Stadia in that general direction.

This year, Google will:
  • Let any Stadia game developer offer an instantly accessible free trial of their game that will no longer require you to log into a Stadia account to play — just a couple of clicks from YouTube, a Google Search ad, social media, etc.
  • Let people actually browse the Stadia store for those free trials, outright free games, and games to purchase without even needing to log into a Google account, much less Stadia
  • Let developers port their Unreal Engine and Unity games to Stadia more easily, with tools like DXVK to automatically translate DirectX APIs — “so developers don’t have to modify their game renderer at all,” writes Stadia rep Justin Rende
  • Let white-label partners like AT&T sign up to take Google’s technology to offer free demos and paid games of their own, a B2B offering now dubbed “Immersive Stream for Games”
stadia_onboard_free_trial.gif
Google suggests trying a game is this easy now — easier if you click a direct link instead of browsing. GIF by Google

The pitch, in short, sounds like this: For developers, it’s free and easy to bring your games to Google’s cloud platform and put them in front of anyone instantly. For gamers, Stadia is now a place to browse games you might like to try-before-you-buy, no risk whatsoever — and if you like what you’re playing, you can continue playing it as long as you like, wherever you like, for one simple payment at the end of your free trial.

NO, GOOGLE ISN’T BRINGING WINDOWS GAMES TO STADIA

There is one thing you shouldn’t necessarily expect, though, even though Google will be talking about it today: the company isn’t making its own emulator to bring Windows games to Stadia. I got a peek at the presentation, and it’s more of a suggestion and a tutorial on how to use binary translation techniques than anything else. “This is not a reveal of a finished product or feature available to Stadia developers,” the company writes.

porting_stadia.jpg

Some developers are already working with Google’s new porting tools.

Without that, the big question is how much friction still remains. I definitely have no experience porting games between platforms, so I can’t comment there, but even the free trial experience for players isn’t quite the instantaneous dream since you’ll still need to be logged into a Google account for now. But Stadia spokesperson Justin Rende also says the company is still “continuing to experiment with the goal of removing friction where we can,” and not having to verify a Google account when diving into Stadia would be a big step compared to Google’s early free trials in October. The fewer clicks, the better.

And it’s hard to beat free.

I suppose it’s not that hard to find free games these days — the Epic Games Store gives some away every Friday, and free-to-play titles like Fortnite and Genshin Impact dominate the world. But finding a free cloud gaming PC to play them on, when you’ve only got a phone or a tablet or a weak laptop, is another thing entirely. I’d have killed for that as a kid.

If your internet connection is up for it, you can already play Crayta, Destiny 2, Hitman, PUBG, Super Bomberman R Online, and a handful of big game demos like Rainbow Six: Extraction and Resident Evil Village for free on Stadia. Today, it’ll bring a free timed trial of Risk of Rain 2 as well, and Google says AT&T will soon announce another game beyond the free Batman: Arkham Knight sessions it offered last October.

I’ll be eager to see if Google’s changes entice companies to bring a whole lot more free stuff to Stadia — and how all of it might tie into its once-secret vision to become the world’s largest games platform.

If you’re interested, you can watch the Google for Games Summit here.

www.theverge.com

Google Stadia is subtly reinventing itself to attract new games and gamers

But it doesn’t have a Windows emulator up its sleeves
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
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