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Stadia Reddit AMA: Stadia's Achievements will not have UI at launch; Family Sharing not at launch either
- Thread starter Yinyangfooey
- Start date
Yep, me too - still kinda curious about this whole mess though
This is why all the posts clapping back at anyone skeptical of Stadia with "It's google! They're loaded so of course they're going to do it right" over the past few months have been so baffling. Billion dollar corporations fuck things up all the time, and while advertising dollars can often brute force the door into a market open, it is certainly not an ironclad predictor of success short-term or long-term.
Nah, the tech is there. The infrastructure is there. Google is just rolling this out in the most poorly thought out way possible.
In their initial showing they had it playing on PC, Tablet, & Phone. Don't see why we shouldn't expect it to work as advertised. To me that is the bare minimum. And yes, I agree. Anyone that's been paying attention can tell that Google is marketing it like an actual launch, when in reality it is a paid early access program.
* raises hand *
Ordered day it was announced. Have a 1Gbps/1Gbps fiber connection with unlimited bandwidth so looking forward to trying it out.
I don't understand this mentality, it says early access on their web page and anyone can still cancel with no penalty.
Google Stadia is 2 console cycles too early, closer to 15 years than 10.
There is absolutely no language on the Stadia product page that frames it as "early access" in the sense that you're referring to (ie, Steam early access). They've used marketing language to the effect of "order a Founder's edition and be the first to play", but never in the context of "be a beta tester"
Im buying one and expensing it through work. We need to test its capabilities and performance in our network (im a network engineer for a small independent ISP)
Yeesh. I wish them well but it seems like everytime they talk about this thing it sounds worse...
Pfft, you're late. I called it DOA in the thread with the launch lineup of games
Hot damn, this just gets more pathetic as we go jeez.
So basically:
No web interface
iOS users get fucked
Not a single exclusive game
No family sharing or buddy passes
No editions outside the founders editions will work
Need the a phone to buy anything
Who the hell thought this product was in a launchable state? Sounds like AC origins streamed successfully so let's throw something together for a 2019 release. I would call my bank and charge back the $129 on fraudulent ground. Google wtf?
So basically:
No web interface
iOS users get fucked
Not a single exclusive game
No family sharing or buddy passes
No editions outside the founders editions will work
Need the a phone to buy anything
Who the hell thought this product was in a launchable state? Sounds like AC origins streamed successfully so let's throw something together for a 2019 release. I would call my bank and charge back the $129 on fraudulent ground. Google wtf?
I think that their goal is to have Stadia ready for the next gen launch. When people are looking at new $500 consoles, I can see it being a lot more tempting. This almost feels like a beta where they launch with basic features and work on functionality. That makes sense but it's crappy to have people pay for a beta.
well they said that they plan update each week, I think this going to turn out amazing by the time everyone gets to play with it early next year.
One of those things with a rocky start but eventually got there
I get all that and understood that is their approach, I was questioning why they would hire gaming product managers and producers just to treat it like one of their other services? This isn't Google Drive or something, it's a gaming platform.
In any event, I wish them the best. They're going to need all the luck they can get if they want this thing to have legs after launching barebones.
Well I'm just saying that came kind of late; they hired those people after already planning to launch a product.
Like the fact they JUST announced the founding of game studios is to create exclusive content is both sort of hilarious.. but also interesting in that it's no small investment to form game studios.
They clearly brought the actual product people on really late in the process lol
I don't see any other way of sensibly scaling. Sure, you can hand out a smaller amount of hardware for free, but then your beta is too small (and they already did this with Project Stream). The paid early access model lets them control deployment at scales that are relevant for testing mass use of the platform.
That's another thing people here don't seem to get -- it isn't like a console launch where it gets released and then that's the console, pretty much for the whole gen. This kind of product is going to be receiving constant updates capable of greater changes than the system software updates we get with consoles.
They hired the guy who managed the launch of the PS3 and XBone. What do you expect? All of this is par of the course with Harrison.
It is. The majority of the country (talking specifically United States) sails easily past the minimum speed requirements. Sure, there are going to be exceptions but the majority of the country is ready.
Straight from a FCC report:
I still have no clue what the market actually is for Stadia. People who really want to play AAA games but aren't willing to spend a couple hundred bucks on a console? How big is that segment? Or is it for enthusiasts who want to have cutting edge graphics all the time? Because those people are going to be the most sensitive to the downsides of Stadia (latency, the entire business model).
Here's the real thing - not everything has to be in the cloud. Video games are actually a perfect example of when local processing is superior because of the interactive nature that is at the core of their very existence. We can get very powerful consoles into the hands of people for like $400 every 6-7 years. It's not a huge barrier to entry.
Here's the real thing - not everything has to be in the cloud. Video games are actually a perfect example of when local processing is superior because of the interactive nature that is at the core of their very existence. We can get very powerful consoles into the hands of people for like $400 every 6-7 years. It's not a huge barrier to entry.
I don't have to buy hardware now though if I don't want to, I see no reason to now that I have another option
why spend 500$ - 1000$ if I don't have to
google doesn't release finished products. It shits them out quarter baked and eventually they get good (Gmail,docs, etc) or they die (hangout, wave, +, etc)
- It being easier to roll out updates doesn't necessarily mean that the frequency of worthwhile updates will be higher. It's easier to roll stuff in, sure, but there's still the whole process/expense of actually implementing and QAing the changes. It's also easier to break things, or have publishers give up on keeping their games current to utilize the new features.
- Publishers make games for the hardware where the money is. Unless they're moneyhatted or have a director that really wants to design a game around the Stadia-specific features, games will still be tethered to the PS5/Xboo. If Stadia catches on we may see it become the baseline, but until then it'll probably just be higher-res/framerates and some stuff that's easily implementable with the Stadia API, and nothing to really separate it from the pack.
I start to feel the same. It's not so much money. But I don't need a chrome cast or Bluetooth controller. I want a full -all game available- beast setup to play
The tech is there for sure.
The betas were pretty solid for those who tested it.
I played games over shitty wifi on the nvivia shield handheld when they had their streaming service and that worked pretty okay considering it wasn't even supported in my country lol. And that was about 5 years ago.
The problem is with their handling of everything.
The pricing, the fact that it doesn't just work on existing chromecasts and phones. The very limited launch lineup.
I'm sure it'll be a great product in 2 years when all the issues are ironed out and its a $20 a month sub to play a library of games anywhere you are.
But until then, its a pass from me.
The betas were pretty solid for those who tested it.
I played games over shitty wifi on the nvivia shield handheld when they had their streaming service and that worked pretty okay considering it wasn't even supported in my country lol. And that was about 5 years ago.
The problem is with their handling of everything.
The pricing, the fact that it doesn't just work on existing chromecasts and phones. The very limited launch lineup.
I'm sure it'll be a great product in 2 years when all the issues are ironed out and its a $20 a month sub to play a library of games anywhere you are.
But until then, its a pass from me.
Re: 1, I think your take is dead wrong and you are still looking at things as though Google is a game console manufacturer. Google comes from the web services and applications world, and the way they approach changes is very different (consider your experiences with the evolution of any Google product from an updates perspective). Although I don't think its quite "continuous deployment", they tend to make small(ish) changes frequently, sometimes even with feature flipping (updates to some customers, then flow out gradually).
The other thing is that you are also only looking at it from a games (or game SDK) update perspective, and not the the entirety of the system. Everything from interfaces to instance OS software (to the instance spec. itself to some degree) is also much more easily updated in this model.
Locking 4k behind Chromecast + not releasing an OTA update ahead of time for existing Chromecasts? Also throw in delaying buddy pass 2 weeks... also staggering shipping to people who pre-ordered ages ago.
A lot of this stuff sounds like they are trying to stagger the load on the servers. The first wave of "shipped" people will get codes to login and start playing via Chrome or their Pixel phones but won't be able to use 4k, potentially putting less stress on part of their architecture (less bandwidth.) If they updated existing Chroemcast devices, those people would be able to use 4k before Google is theoretically ready to handle the load. (not in the sense that they couldn't possibly handle it, but that they are planning on having 2-3 days where they can see how the traffic is dispersed on the initial 1080p users before then prepping for the 4k users)
I'm theorizing, but all of the things I mentioned above all sound like ways to stagger who is using Stadia and how. The buddy codes being the most obvious thing.
A lot of this stuff sounds like they are trying to stagger the load on the servers. The first wave of "shipped" people will get codes to login and start playing via Chrome or their Pixel phones but won't be able to use 4k, potentially putting less stress on part of their architecture (less bandwidth.) If they updated existing Chroemcast devices, those people would be able to use 4k before Google is theoretically ready to handle the load. (not in the sense that they couldn't possibly handle it, but that they are planning on having 2-3 days where they can see how the traffic is dispersed on the initial 1080p users before then prepping for the 4k users)
I'm theorizing, but all of the things I mentioned above all sound like ways to stagger who is using Stadia and how. The buddy codes being the most obvious thing.
I mean, seeing that launch line up was bad enough, but this is utterly ridiculous. Talk about coming in hot. This fucking thing is magma.
If your not sure, then do it. You can always get the Premier edition of you change your mind after the rollout. The stuff you lose its trivial.
Personally I need a Chromecast and just want to see how d2 performs. I'm used to beta and early access so my initial expectations are low