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Stadia Pricing Model Already Decided, But Google Isn’t Sharing It Just Yet
Google’s announcement of Stadia is a big step towards the future of cloud gaming. The service allows players to stream video games via the cloud across a variety of different devices. Google is still keeping a lot of details about Stadia close to the chest, but during GDC 2019, the company’s VP Phil Harrison sat down with GameSpot to further delve into the service.
During the interview, we asked Harrison about Stadia’s pricing model. We didn’t get too many details, but Harrison did reveal that a pricing model for Sadia already exists. It’s just being revealed at a later date. In an interview with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, Guillemot predicted Stadia would launch with a “multitude” of pricing models. “Either you buy full price and you play; or you will be able to also register, possibly, to play either one hour or two hours a day. There will be plenty of ways,” he said.
Harrison was able to talk about the process behind deciding the specific model for Stadia, though. “[It was a lot] of very deep conversations with our developer and publisher partners over many many months, and years in some cases. A lot of deep consumer research. We have had a fantastic user research team as a core part of the Stadia team for two years now. And so, we have our point of view, we then test various hypotheses with consumers and publishing partners, and then get to the right result.”
During the interview, Harrison did confirm that Stadia would not support offline downloads. When asked if Google would consider adding the option down the line, Harrison said it was “not technically possible.” He further clarified that adding offline downloads to Stadia “would be a compromise of our vision.”
During the Google GDC keynote, the company announced that Stadia is scheduled to launch in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK, and “most of” Europe. More details, such as which games are coming to the service, will be revealed at a later time. For now, we know both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Doom Eternal are confirmed for the service. If you happened to miss the keynote, we’ve compiled every bit of Google gaming news.
If you’re still confused about how cloud gaming works, be sure to read our in-depth explanation. We’ve also outlined the top companies investing in cloud gaming tech.
from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/stadia-pricing-model-already-decided-but-google-is/1100-6465736/
Google Stadia Boss Is “Absolutely, Unequivocally” Sure Latency Won’t Be An Issue
Google’s new video game platform, Stadia, is completely digital and requires a constant, reliable internet connection to function. One of the issues people immediately bring up with streaming technology is latency–or lag. Everyone who has experienced lag in some capacity knows how frustrating it can be. Will lag be an issue with Stadia?
Stadia boss Phil Harrison says he is “absolutely, unequivocally” sure that latency won’t be an issue. “We believe that it’s not just for when the service starts; actually we’ve demonstrated it today,” Harrison told us from San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference where Stadia was announced.
Harrison–who formerly held executive-level positions at Sony and Microsoft–added that it was no accident that Google used Doom Eternal to highlight Stadia.
“Having a studio with the very, very high threshold of quality and functionality from id; having id on our stage was very purposeful because the way [producer Marty Stratton] tells the story is spot on,” he said. “They were skeptical when we first started talking to them. they were skeptical that a streaming platform could support the level of quality and responsiveness that they needed to deliver on their game experience. What they have delivered with Doom Eternal absolutely demonstrates that.”
Harrison went on to say that Google has been able to achieve a low-latency platform because of the investments its made into the infrastructure supporting Stadia.
“It’s because of the investments that we are making in the hardware and the fundamental networking fabric in the compression and encoder and the way we transport the bits from our data center to your home,” he said. “There’s probably 100 innovations there that each mean that we can deliver that quality of experience.”
Also in the interview, Harrison pointed out that Stadia streams faster than the human body can process the information.
“We get the data, the video, from our data center to your eyeball quicker than your eyeball to brain to nervous system to finger,” he said. “The human operating system is the slowest part of the [Stadia] operating system. Some humans are slower than others.”
As with any internet-connected service, your experience will depend on the quality of your connection so mileage may vary between users. Harrison added Stadia will offer a bandwidth test service that informs them of the performance characteristics of their network, while he said Google will help players optimise the internet quality of their homes in a number of ways, including simply moving a router closer to the device.
Given that streaming a video game will be highly data-intensive, some people are also concerned about data caps and limits imposed by Internet service providers. Harrison said ISPs have a history of adapting their models to support new services. As an example, he said when music streaming became popular, ISPs increased bandwidth limits, and the same thing happened with the rise of YouTube and Netflix. Bandwidth limits are expected to continue to rise over time, Harrison said. That may be true, but it remains to be seen if ISPs will continue to charge extra for such increases.
Stadia launches later this year, but there are still many unanswered questions about it. One of the biggest ones is price. Harrison also told us that Google has the pricing sorted out, but it’s saving that reveal for a future point in time. Google will talk more about Stadia this summer, and one possible forum for further announcements is E3.
- Is Google Stadia What The Next-Gen Of Gaming Will Look Like?
- Google Stadia: Hands-on Impressions With New Game-Streaming Service From GDC 2019
from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/google-stadia-boss-is-absolutely-unequivocally-sur/1100-6465737/
Google’s Stadia Won’t Allow Offline Downloads
Google is taking its first significant step into gaming with Stadia, its ambitious new cloud platform. Like Microsoft’s xCloud, Stadia will offer players the ability to stream video games across a variety of devices, along with a host of other innovations such as state sharing. And while there are still many questions lingering around the platform, one thing we now know is that it won’t offer offline downloads.
GameSpot got a chance to speak with Google VP Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference. We asked Harrison if Google will ever consider giving players the option to download content from Stadia and enjoy it offline, as services such as Spotify and Netflix do. “No, not technically possible,” Harrison replied. “It would be a compromise of our vision if we were to do that.”
This ties into Google’s previous confirmation that it won’t release its own set-top box to run Stadia; rather, all of the games available on the platform will be streamed from the company’s data centers, and they’ll be playable across across desktops, smartphones, laptops, tablets, and TVs–the latter through a Chromecast Ultra HDMI streamer. Google will, however, release a dedicated Stadia controller that features unique buttons to capture/share gameplay and access Google Assistant.
Only a handful of games have been confirmed for Stadia thus far, among them Doom Eternal and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which was the game Google used to test the platform last year under the Project Stream moniker. Google also announced it is forming its own first-party studio led by Jade Raymond to develop games exclusively for the platform.
Google Stadia is slated to launch later this year. It will initially be available in the US, Canada, the UK, and “most of” Europe. Google says it will share additional details about the platform and its launch lineup this summer. You can read more about how cloud gaming works and check out all of the Google gaming news from GDC.
from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/googles-stadia-wont-allow-offline-downloads/1100-6465733/
