Adam Tyner

Yup, that's my experience too.
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fujishig

The problem is, you guys only have unlimited until they decide they don't want to offer it anymore. Also, isn't there still an issue with throttling over a certain amount? I know my AT&T fiber is unlimited only because I'm grandfathered in.

Sonny Corinthos

Thank you for explaining that to me. Makes sense.

Decker

The great unknown (besides data usage) will be pricing. Will you pay a lump sum monthly for access like Playstation Now? Will you pay per game as a weekly rental? Will you "buy" a game to "own" on their service?

Groucho

I'm just astounded at the reaction to this as if it's some sort of revolutionary thing that hasn't been tried again and again over the last ten years (probably more).

I think the best way to do this is some sort of hybrid model, where the gameplay streams, but the hud (and possibly some other elements) are rendered locally. That way even if the screen blurs on bandwidth dips you can still tell what's going on.

foxdvd

I have gig speed unlimited...but I live in Oklahoma. There has always been and will always be lag (input delay) in online streaming games where I live, no matter my speed. My nearest hub is always Dallas, and Google is not going to fix that anytime soon....

Also, can we get over the idea that 200 bucks for a console is expensive? What does this offer me that I don't already get with my ps4 pro? Better graphics but with lag and artifacts? No thanks...

fujishig

? What consoles are 200 bucks?

mattysemo247

Xbox One is constantly on sale for under $200. Just check out Slickdeals.

PS4 hits that price every now and then, but usually around Christmas and other holiday sales.

E Unit

Yeah, I have AT&T Gigabit and there's no cap.

Decker

I didn't have one with Cox Cable and Internet, until they changed their policy and then I did. I got dinged only once, after I got my XBX and it automatically downloaded dozens of 4K patches.
Not having a cap doesn't mean you never will.

fujishig

The guy asked what this could do that his PS4 pro couldn't, so I was hoping there was some way to buy a PS4 pro for 200 bucks...

It took years and special sales for the hardware to come down in price. What are the next generation of hardware going to start at? That's what you have to consider, whether that cost is a barrier to entry. It absolutely is. Same as having a high end computer with a great graphics card. The draw here is that you don't have to keep up with your personal hardware, that the servers will be kept up, and this should also allow specs to ramp up without having to replace anything.

RichC2

No throttling, and that's true of any service, hopefully we'd just be grandfathered in (in the future, should they get rid of the +$30/unlimited data/included with gig setup)

Anyway, Google likes to bury their projects pretty quick. I love the idea of a high bandwidth version of one of these services, but am doubtful it'll last very long. I'll give it a shot as long as it's subscription based and not purchase based.

dsa_shea

If you are paying 50-60 bucks a game, you can afford a 200-400 console. If you can't then you shouldn't be gaming in the first place. I also can't see companies that are used to making a decent share of the 60 price tag per new release taking a hit in their profit margin.

eXcentris

Internet, IPTV, Netflix, VR, 4K, games,... in a few years, I fully expect data caps to be a thing of the past. Currently, data caps just keep moving higher and higher, so "unlimited" is just the next logical step.

Maxflier

Sonny Corinthos

Wal-Mart maybe working on their own version of Stadia to compete with Google.

https://www.gameinformer.com/report/...dia-competitor

K&AJones

I know the industry and some out there are excited about this and already predicting the "Doom & Gloom" for consoles with all this fancy smacy presentation......but not so fast. Stadia is and will not be for everyone with it's main caveat centered around internet speed. With consoles there is no real limitation since you can play online, offline, with or without PSN or XBL with physical discs almost everywhere. There is far more Freedom of Choice with consoles that there will be with Stadia. It's just another option for gamers which is great for the world of gaming.

Mordred

I think this probably would pair amazingly well with Google Fiber if you're lucky enough to have access to it. I used to and it was amazing. If I still had it, I'd probably be all over this.

Michael Corvin

I had this debate with some friends. Currently to game all you need is three things; a console, a game and a tv.

With streaming you need the above three in addition to amazing and reliable internet, you need the console manufacturer to have reliable servers(and/or not overloaded servers) and service on their end, and for them to not go out of business or you're entire catalog disappears and you have a fancy paperweight. Also I have my doubts this will win over any hardcore/competitive gamer. You're talking about a segment of gamers that use wired controllers to avoid input lag. They will never buy into a platform that revolves around "cheating" latency issues (as the google guy puts it in one of the videos). With the push to 4k & 60fps, how can a company pull this off on such a massive scale to support 20s of millions of gamers? Sounds like a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream to me. It will be the future of gaming at some point, but I think we're still at least a decade plus away from this being remotely practical.

As for the Stadia itself, Sony & MS fans are all-in in those ecosystems. Who's jumping ship to a fourth and unproven console manufacturer to a gaming service that is also unproven? For a casual gamer (think Nintendo crowd or the yearly Madden buyer) and average non-AAA games, this has potential.

K&A is right though. Why would someone willingly limit thier options? If you buy a streaming only console you are married to the game prices dictated by that company. A regular console benefits from a competitive market from not only retailers (sales, clearance, used games, etc.) but from manufacturers wanting to get the most sales. Also in 10-15 years when this console/service is dead how do you play those games? Servers are shut down and you're fucked. On the flipside I can pick up an old Gamecube and some games and be playing within an hour. No service needed. The benefits of a traditional console far outweigh the novelty of cloud based gaming.

I guess all this makes me old.

I think the Stadia will go over about as well as OnLive. In other words... D.O.A.

RichC2

There hasn't been any talk of a Stadia console yet. There'd be no point, any Android TV device or stick that can pair with a controller would be able to use it. It'd be another app like Netflix, Plex, or Hulu.

​​​​So far it's roughly 20mbps for 1080p/60 and 30mbps for 4k/60 apparently.

Jeremy517

I got to be in the Project Stream beta test for this. It worked very well, but boy did it chew through my data cap. I went through like 400GB per month more than usual, and didn't even really play a ton. I had to cut off my playing in the first month when I noticed how much of my cap I was using.

Input lag was surprisingly not an issue at all. Load times were very good. Graphically it looked very good, with only the occasional drop in bit rate.

When that test was over, I did a demo of Playstation Now streaming service. It was a much worse experience. Load times were awful and the bit rate was bad. Input lag was decent, but not as good as Project Stream. It was good enough for me to beat Bloodborne though.

I wouldn't ever pay for a streaming game service, but Google seems to be doing it well from my experience.

Giantrobo

So we're just going to ignore or snob on those who can always find deals on games for less than $60?

fujishig

In 10 to 15 years, what are you going to do with your PS4/one games? Multiplayer games will be dead. Single player games won't be able to be patched and no DLC. Even the most recent Final Fantasy, like half that game was in the patch and DLC. People spend tons of money on mobile games and that's flushed down the toilet as soon as those games are no longer profitable.

If it's a subscription service, and cheap enough, then people who don't want to invest in consoles, or who don't want to continually upgrade consoles, may want to buy into this. Hardcore gamers who buy every console won't replace their main console with this. But if this is an easy enough way to play, say, Fortnite on your tv via your chromecast or something, then people will use it. Even beyond simpler games like that, there's some appeal in the server side having to upgrade periodically and not having to do it on the personal hardware side.

Still dependent on internet, CDNs, etc. Google is well positioned to try it, though, since it's not like it's interfering in something else they already produce. I'm still surprised Amazon didn't try to leverage AWS to do something like this first, though.

Michael Corvin

Disc games are fully playable without updates otherwise retail would be dead already.

Sonny Corinthos

We don't have much longer to wait. Google is holding a press conference on June 6th. It will be interesting if they give us all of the details about it.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/06...vent-on-june-6