Google announces Stadia, an ambitious gaming streaming service

Remember when you had to use cartridges for your video games? Remember when your PS2 would do that scary red boot up screen if your disc was too scratched? Remember DOWNLOADING games? Psh, all ways of the past with Google’s new Stadia service.

After many rumors and teases, Google has finally lifted the curtain on their big new venture into gaming. Stadia will not be a console but a digital service that can play games like Doom Eternal in 4K, 60FPs. Bold, we know. The idea for Stadia is to have a gaming platform for everyone, no more hardware barriers. No thousand dollar PCs, no $500 consoles, the devices you already own will be capable of it.

This includes phones, TVs, laptops, tablets, with the ability to use existing controllers. Stadia will have its own controller that helps limit latency, includes a share button for YouTube, and a built-in microphone for Google Assistant.

The skepticism is rampant from people online already. We don’t know the kind of internet speeds you’ll need to effectively run Stadia and we don’t know pricing details. That said, Google is seemingly quite confident in its ability to deliver this experience to the majority of people.

On top of already having a beta test under the name Project Stream last year which allowed players to stream Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, they talked about the hardware they have to make this all happen. Using their thousands of edge nodes, powerful hardware around the world, and the help of a custom AMD server-side GPU, they boast a powerful service.

With 10.7 GPU Teraflops (Xbox One X has 6, PS4 Pro has 4.2), it’s boasting quite the power. It’s important to note, none of this mighty power is coming from the devices you own but the hardware Google is using to stream it to your device. As mentioned, Doom Eternal will be capable of 4K, 60FPS and Id Software was able to get the game up and running on Stadia within just a few weeks.

You can take a look at Digital Foundry’s exclusive hands-on look at Stadia and see just how it performs below.

Google remained tight-lipped about what games the platform would launch with later this year but images shown ahead of the briefing teased cowboys, horses, and saloons… meaning Red Dead Redemption 2 could be on Stadia.

Google’s own Jade Raymond (credited with helping create Assassin’s Creed) will lead a gaming division that makes first-party titles for Stadia and helps bring over existing third-party games to the service.

Besides just boasting the ability to stream games, it can do other unique things as well. Players can watch a video on YouTube for a game, buy it from within that video, and then within 5 seconds be playing the game without installing or downloading any patches. “Stadia offers instant access to play,” said Phil Harrison, former executive of Xbox and PlayStation.

If you’re watching a streamer, you’ll also be able to use a feature called Crowd Play to join their lobby should the streamer enable it. Players will enter a queue and wait their turn in line and then be able to join when a spot opens up.

Another feature called State Share allows you to save the game and share that save to bring players to the point you’re at in a game. This could be used for a number of reasons such as challenging someone to beat a score or boss amongst other things.

Google has not put a release date or price point on Stadia but states it will be available sometime this year. More details will be coming this summer.