Topic: Google Stadia

[BranDonk Kong]

The Netflix comparisons are actually very relevant, for data caps, etc. They say 4k 60fps would need 30Mbps, which is about twice what Netflix uses for 4k 30fps. However, no one is forcing anyone to use it. But also, if you have a data cap, try to switch to a different ISP, if possible. Data caps are horse **** and serve no purpose other than do nickel and dime customers.

[broodwars]

The Netflix comparisons are actually very relevant, for data caps, etc. They say 4k 60fps would need 30Mbps, which is about twice what Netflix uses for 4k 30fps. However, no one is forcing anyone to use it. But also, if you have a data cap, try to switch to a different ISP, if possible. Data caps are horse **** and serve no purpose other than do nickel and dime customers.

Except the telecom companies have regional monopolies, so not everyone has the ability to just switch internet providers. I'm sure if they could, they'd have done so and there wouldn't be a captive audience to enforce data caps on. Sometimes, the only provider in your area is Company X. In my area, it's Spectrum.

[BranDonk Kong]

I have spectrum too, they don't have caps (here at least). They absolutely suck and bright house had much better pricing and customer service...but at least they still don't have caps and still don't gaf about the DMCA.

[BranDonk Kong]

Note I did say "try" though. We actually have a couple options in my area, Spectrum and AT&T. Seems to be pretty rare though.

[ejamer]

Ah, so is this equivalent to Apple Arcade? I had ignored the thread so didn't realize what Stadia was.

Mostly the same reaction from me. I understand this is the future... but I'm behind the curve, baby! Still rocking those old-school cartridges where I don't require internet to play and can buy used games for pennies on the dollar. Rad!

[Ian Sane]

Still rocking those old-school cartridges where I don't require internet to play and can buy used games for pennies on the dollar. Rad!

What system are you playing cheap cartridges on these days? lol The Intellivision?  Not so many cheap carts on retro Nintendo systems these days.

[ejamer]

Lately, DS carts have been really cheap locally... I've bought a bunch of games for $5 each.
I still miss the Wii days where we had such a glut of choice for $15 and under.  Oh well.

[ThePerm]

I think we'll use the service because it'll be easily accessible. It won't be our favorite though.

This is probably going to be great for Free to Play games, or MMO games. We have no idea about pricing. I have this suspicion ads will be found throughout the games. I don't mind games with bill boards. You're playing some Fantasy game and it has billboards. That would be funny.

Sega is supposed to be deep in on this though we haven't seen anything substantial from them. Maybe a new Phantasy Star?

When FFXI came out I had friends who became total homebodies and would not leave their house. Being able to play an MMO on the go would be good for society. Though I imagine MMO car crashes would happen.

[Ian Sane]

Lately, DS carts have been really cheap locally... I've bought a bunch of games for $5 each.
I still miss the Wii days where we had such a glut of choice for $15 and under.  Oh well.

I hasn't even thought of the DS when you said "carts".  My mind immediately goes to something more bulky.  The DS is a fantastic system for collectors right now.  It's new enough that its merely considered "old" as opposed to "retro" so it's quite affordable.  And it's one of the last systems where nearly everything is physical.

[ThePerm]

Stadia would be good for ephemeral games too. Like say you could publish games like youtube videos then it would be very easy to release your game fan fiction.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I just now found out about this console (....how out of the loop am I O_o) when looking up the new Avengers Game and realizing that it wasn't coming to Switch, but coming to something called Stadia.

Well.... while I like the idea in theory, I have to agree with most that this will be a hard "NO" for now, but depending on how things playout..... I guess we will see?

I mean, mandatory internet connection, but that's where data caps may come in to play.
But also lots of people tend to have a spotty connections at time, depending on if they are hardwired or wireless, so that could also become an issue.

Of course Stadia also has scalable graphics/resolution based on connection speed


but since there is a version of the game that scales from 720p to 1080p.... why doesn't it exist for the Switch that has a large and rapidly growing ownership? (what are the comparative US/EU/WW unit sales numbers for Switch v PS4 v XB1 btw, I haven't really seen that in a long time.)

But the one major thing I see this has going for it is, no console needed, just an internet connected device.
No downloads, no patches, and auto saves, which means you just need to log in and start playing.

and while you can play the Stadia on a rage on "internet connected" devices, which means you can play on the go.... what happens if you take the train to work, and go through tunnels and constantly lose connection?

What if 3-5years down the road Google decides this venture didn't make enough money and the servers are too much to maintain after year 7... do they just send you a download code (for the game and platform)? or transfer your ownership to Steam or something?
If I spent $600 on games for this thing, and I want to play them randomly 10 years from now..... and I still own the Chromecast Ultra from the "pre-order" is Google going to allow me to access content I already paid for!? that's a major concern of mine.
I know Google will be around, but doesn't mean Stadia and all it's servers will be..... :/

And the controller is d-pad dominant..... I'm not sure how many "serious gamers" are going to like that over their PS4's and XB1's


I don't see this getting as much support as Google is going to hope for, unless they can make deals with the major cable providers and/or get non-competitive Gov contracts broken so they can lay their own fiber across the damn country.


and this thing comes out next month?
https://store.google.com/product/stadia

$129 on pre-order for the "founders edition"

[ejamer]

... 10 years from now ...

I know some people might view 10 years as the distant future, but I'm old already and "10 years from now" probably isn't enough to clear out my current backlog.

Digital streaming services for gaming sound like a glorified rental system for people who have easy access to uncapped broadband - not a bad thing, but not my thing.

[MagicCow64]

... 10 years from now ...

I know some people might view 10 years as the distant future, but I'm old already and "10 years from now" probably isn't enough to clear out my current backlog.

Digital streaming services for gaming sound like a glorified rental system for people who have easy access to uncapped broadband - not a bad thing, but not my thing.

If it was actually a rental system, I'd be much more into it. Like, I'd probably pay $~20 over a weekend or two to play through a shiny new single-player adventure game that I would only ever play through once anyway. I have very little interest in digital licenses over physical games in the first place, though, unless they're heavily discounted.

[ejamer]

... I have very little interest in digital licenses over physical games in the first place, though, unless they're heavily discounted.

Yeah - I've complained about this a bunch of times, but do y'all remember when the selling point of digital was how much cheaper the games will be once we cut out the middle men who are driving up prices? I'm still finding that retail purchases are consistently cheaper if you keep your eyes/ears open for sales.

[BlackNMild2k1]

... 10 years from now ...

I know some people might view 10 years as the distant future, but I'm old already and "10 years from now" probably isn't enough to clear out my current backlog.

Digital streaming services for gaming sound like a glorified rental system for people who have easy access to uncapped broadband - not a bad thing, but not my thing.

ok, so if you bought this thing now, bought a bunch of games, where only some of them you kinda played immediately, and then by the time you got through the majority of your currently backlog, decided to revisit the backlog accumulated on the Stadia, but the servers for some reason have been shut down and licenses not issued for you to do some sort of direct download, or access from another service.... then what do you do?

[nickmitch]

So, Google thinks that streaming on Stadia can become faster than console play because of a concept they're calling "Negative Latency".

"Negative latency" is a concept by which Stadia can set up a game with a buffer of predicted latency between the server and player, and then use various methods to undercut it. It can run the game at a super-fast framerate so it can act on player inputs earlier, or it can predict a player's button presses.

(emphasis added)

Some explanation (courtesy of Twitter):

[nickmitch]

Excuse the double post, wanted to separate my thoughts from the main thing.

I thought the idea was kinda silly when I first read it, but the explanation made sense.  My only issue is that how can there not be a near-infinite number of different inputs that Stadia will have to keep track of?  Will it just assume I'm going to progress in the game normally?  If I do something unexpected, I'll lose all the benefit of "negative latency".  But it's still pretty interesting.

[Ian Sane]

The predictive element of negative latency makes it sound like you won't be really playing the game but rather being given the impression of playing the game.  Something as simple as a jump actually has lots of different variables that indicate if you make the jump correctly or fall to your doom.  There's speed, the point where the jump button was pressed, often how long you pressed the button, and in 3D games you also have the angle.  In the example given they would probably narrow it down to a handful of situations where you make or miss the jump and then pick one based on what is closest to what you actually did.  So you're not making the jump, you're triggering a little cutscene of the character making the jump.  That's like bad motion control games where your "swing" is just triggering a handful of pre-determined actions instead of faithfully recreating your movement.  At its extreme it sounds like Dragon's Lair.

And it's all a very convoluted solution to achieve something that already can be done with the existing console model.  I think Stadia can work well with games designed to accommodate potential lag like turn based genres (RPG, strategy) or ones like visual novels or point-and-click adventures where the timing can be off and it doesn't matter.  But the goal here is to be your standard first-choice for videogames which means it needs to do fast paced action games where lag is a major issue.  I think for now at least this would work best if it was presented as a compliment to existing game systems where it focuses on its strengths and establishes a niche.  Then if technology advances where lag is less of an issue the established customer base is there for Stadia to transition to the only console a person needs.

[ejamer]

I'm less down on the negative latency concept than others - but it seems wasteful. You'll require a lot of extra processing and a fairly steady (and responsive) connection to be useful; I mean, you aren't really getting rid of input lag, just trying to make the effect less perceptible. If you have a crappy connection or bandwidth limitations, that's still going to limit you though.

There is some really good netcode out there for fighting games that require extremely precise timing. If that can work, and people don't get worked up about it, then I'm sure this can work too.

[Adrock]

Movies are far more pervasive, consumable, and easily distributed than video games. A “long movie” is like two and a half to three hours in runtime. I know I can get through that. I’m a passive participant; I can’t get “stuck” in a movie. I don’t have to consult the internet to get to the next scene. More importantly, they’re complete. Even Director’s Cuts and George Lucas-esque fiddling Special Editions are considered completely separate versions. Unlike video games, there’s typically nothing about the movie file itself that prevents it from being viewed from beginning to end. maybe the file is corrupted, but they don’t need to be patched.

For those reasons, I just can’t get behind video game streaming services. I am grossly inconsistent when it comes to playing video games. I put a game as amazing as Breath of the Wild down for a literal year. I poured over 250 hours into it. I can’t sanction a future in which I don’t get to decide when I’m finished with a video game. If a movie gets pulled from a service, it’s likely available somewhere else in an official and/or unofficial means. You may need the right codec or whatever, but they’re super easy to find. I just don’t like any comparisons between video games and movies when it comes to streaming.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m ready to embrace digital downloads. I don’t like that games can be pulled from digital stores without warning, but with storage solutions becoming larger yet cheaper, chances are I’ll have the required files, and that’s no different than if a physical card/cartridge/disc becomes damaged/lost/stolen. With downloadable content and especially patches, physical versions of games are practically useless now.

[lolmonade]

I'm a sucker who decided to get a founders edition that's set to arrive today.  AMA.

[nickmitch]

Why though?

[lolmonade]

Why though?

I had use of a Chromecast Ultra, liked the idea of being able to grind Destiny 2 leveling on any screen, and was curious about whether streaming games could be handled by my rural internet.

[Adrock]

I... was curious about whether streaming games could be handled by my rural internet.

Can it?

[pokepal148]

I can't believe this picture hasn't turned up in this thread.