Google Stadia Review

The owner of YouTube, the biggest video streaming platform in the world decides it wants a piece of the gaming pie and launches Google Stadia a game streaming service What does it do wrong and what does it do right? [Music - exciting, motivating] By now you may have heard the negative, and sometimes vicious, feedback about Google Stadia This certainly isn’t a video to join-in with the dog-pile, it’s simply straight forward feedback on my experience using it Part of the review is obviously about Stadia The product and service from Google But there is also another part, which is about the relevance of cloud gaming which I will come to later Google revealed Stadia back in March 2019 The standard way to play premium video game requires the game but you must also have a PC or console to play them on, like PlayStation,  Xbox or Nintendo Switch Stadia is different.

 It uses a purpose-builssserverrm of PCs which run games, these are accessed remotely by players through their, smartphone or web browser The promised benefit of all this is cost and convenience. People will no longer have to buy an expensive console to play premium videogames. So titles are not just restricted to hobbyists but democratise gaming by making it available to anyone with an internet connection This also opens up the market to publishers who immediately have a massively increased userbase of people to sell their games to Gaming becomes more convenient allowing the player play games on a variety of devices at home or whilst out and about So the cost, there is a free level of Google Stadia service where games are at a maximum resolution of 1080p 60 fps and stereo sound - although this doesn’tlaunch until 2020 Or you can pay £8.99 / $9.99 for a monthlybscription which has improved visuals and sound 4K graphics, 60fps, HDR and 5.1 surround sound Games are purchased separately I ordered the Founder’s Edition for £119 which is $129.99 in the USA and it comes complete with a Chromecast Ultra for 4K and HDR streaming to a TV.A Night Blue controller and a three-month subscription to Stadia Pro (and one for a friend). And acclaimedded access to a Stadia username’ This is what you get in the box; The Chromecast Ultra The power chargers The controller The setup process is convoluted requirinttthee of two separate Google smartphone apps You need a special invite code to create your user account, however,r, Google doesn't include this in the box! You have to wait for it to bee emailed to you. Despite myself being one of the first to pre-order, my Stadia came on the day after launch and when my package came through the post I hadn’t been sent the invite code, so I was unable to use Stadia until, I received mine, about, 12 hours later.Google acknowledged this problem but it meant that my username, the one that I had hoped to get, was taken It’s understandable that if multiple people want the same name only one person can get it Looking at Twitter it seemed a loofofK customers were affected and Google gave review units to websites 1-2 weeks before the consumer launch, that’s fine. But Google also allowed privileged staff at organisations like IGN to claim the prime user names that they advertised as a selling point of Stadia, that consumers had paid money for They should have given journalists a temporary username or one with reviewer prefix So the whole username promise was broken,  the tech for it collapsed and it started off the whole process for me, and for many other people too, with a very bad taste about Google Stadia What Google should have done is just put the code in the box.

 Now I'll just plug that into the back of the TV in one of the free HDMI ports It's a little bit dark here but I hope you can see This is the Chromecast and it's plugged into one of my free HDMI ports on the TV and it's got a cable coming out of it going to the power, going to the mains The setup process isn’t difficult for the tech-literate, but it is overly convoluted requiring you to use the Google Home app to set up the Chromecast Ultra and the Google Stadia app to set up the account and controller. It could all have been simplified by integrating the Ultra into the Stadia app The user interface on TV is perfunctory at best It’s perfunctory at best, almost noexistentorst After you select your user account, you will bee in the menu for the last played game. Your other available games are overlaid at the bottom of the screen And that’s it! You're able to select your games and using the Stadia App you can add friends, browse the game store and buy titles and click on links to websites and that's it! The Google Stadia controller The first feel and you know what? Within a couple of seconds, I can say that actually feels quite comfortable and that's not damning it with faint praise it's just how many third-party controllers have you picked up and felt, and they've been really uncomfortable? and at first instance this has got a reasonable amount of weight, it's not too heavy it feels like the thumbs and fingers all go in the right place The top two buttons are used for in-game controllers Google Assistant button - is not functioning yet and the Share button allows you to take a screenshot or 30-second clip these weren’t viewable at all at launch. Now, at the time of recording,  they are viewable in the Stadia app but located in a haphazard way under the games library and it's not even possible to share or post these anywhere so at this stage they are only available for yourself to view Pressing the Stadia button brings up a sidebar where you can view your Connection quality, link a controller or adjusaaudiovels [clicking of controller buttons can be heard] The most surprising missing feature of the stadia is the one that Google shouted loudest about Live streaming. Stadia is built arounttheidea of complementing the YouTube experience by allowing Livestream viewers to jump in and join the games they are watching. These are advance features that haven’t been done before wasn’t expecting this to be ready But it is surprising that live streaming directly from Stadia is not possible especially as it is so easily done on PS4 It would also have drawn people's eyes to streams eager to find out more about Stadia graphics, and this can help launch and grow a community So what about the most important part? The performance! Performance is going to be entirely dependeooon’s internet connection So if you’re watching a review you have to compare the speed of your own internet to the reviewer's to get a better insight to what your own experience might be like. I have 50Mb.

 I was using Stadia connected too my router wirelessly About six metres and one door apart In terms of performance it was better than II was expecting I played on a 4k TV with 4K graphics The first game was Samurai Showdown and it was big and bright and the colours were vivid and I certainly didn’t notice any pixelation The latency felt okay - let me expand on this.It certainly didn’t feel broken in any way Whilst playing the game when I pressed toppunchr kick my character would respond and I’d see it on screen and it worked. I did win a game, which is pretty good because I’ve got no skills! and it was my first goes. It didn't feel super-responsive. But it wasn’t bad and definitely most casual gamers wouldn’tnotice. It’s certainly fine for a non-competitive play Destiny 2 was fine too. The colours seemed slightly muted but that might be because some media outlets have claimed it is using 1080pgraphics that have been upscaled. I can’t confirm that because I just don’t have the equipment to detect that But there were no glitches, no pauses, no artefacts. It seemed to play fairly responsively I was purposefully looking for latency and itid feel ever-so-slightly sluggish. I played through the tutorial level and when I play titan PS4 Pro, that version felt more responsive however when shooting left and right and back again that is when I noticed a bit of latency But again - most people wouldn’t have any issues. I was able to aim at a boss with some precision Tomb Raider looked good and latency was fine To be clear, whilst I could detect latency inn all these games they worked absolutely fine and were completely playable What I found quite remarkable was pausing my game on the TV and then going to my computer opening up the Chrome browser, typing Stadia,  and there was my game in the same pause state which I had left it. And I was able to continue - utterly brilliant and the convenience of playing your game at whatever screen is nearest to you is absolutely a compelling selling point of cloud gaming I tried it twice on my computer, the first timeeetthereas some infrequent but repeated artefacts.

 However the second time it worked so maybe it was simply a case of Google improving their systems or maybe just server load had decreased because most Stadia users had sent their units back! The controller looks bland but felt perfectlcccomfortablehas the symmetrical analogue sticks like the DualShock 4 (approximately the same distance apart) but I found my hands felt less cramped, less tight. In the shorttime, I used it t more comfortable than the DS4 and I had no desire for offset sticks.I would need to use it for longer to see how comfortable it is over a prolonged period Sony pioneered the Share button in home consoles, and thankfully Microsoft is bringing to Xbox Stadia have added a Capture button.I’m used to it being on the left of the DS4 Switch Pro controller does it too. TheSuttonon the right seems off but this could just be my muscle memory The two extra face buttons (let’s call them to star start starts Google have yet to give them a name) are furthest away and the Capture and Google Assistant buttons are nearer so that seems a bit bonkers. I would have had it the other way around because you would normally use those buttons in-game and you would use them more often This product has not had a good launch. Sure,  leaving out the ability to register was a debacle but ultimately that was just a teething problem But Google has gone and launched this product.They have charged a premium for early access to service so lacking in features it’snot even a beta Doing so it demonstrated an utter contempffforomers, at best, not thinking of them as people or thinking about their user experience The UI is almost non-existent, only accessing thee Stadia features by a basic app, missing promised features like streaming to YouTube- Phil Harrison and the Stadia team made a big mistake in releasing this before the product was finished it’s not to say the product did networks feature, cloud game streaming -this works. For e, it worked and it worked well enough and for casual gamers,  this is absolutely fine. If you have a fast, good-enough interneccconnectionen it will work for you the rest of the features will come with time How Stadia will fair further down the line s down to whether Google can offer a compelling business model and if the gaming press isn’t so bad, or the coverage isn't so bad as to kill off any future consumer support I’ve seen and heard and read a lot from gaming industry commentators who are so angry at Stadia for offering a product that is different from what they’ve known. But they are gaming Luddites they are resistant to the chai in iinningsininnnininnges new tech developments ring. But tech doesn’t stand still!

 We moved from cartridges to discs CDs to Blu-rays to digital downloads and cloud gaming is going to be a new option in gaming I'm not saying it's going to kill off the PS5, or the Xbox Series X It doesn’t mean Cloud gaming will replace consoles - but it will certainly be an option of growing significance And the concept ever properly realised, is amazing To play the latest premium games on console for youuououueed a console or PC! But with this a kid who doesn't own a console can see his friends are playing, for example, the latest Call of Duty or Fortnite and he or she can join them without having to own a console and in developing nations who have no cchaaaaaffordingole like the PS5 or Xbox Series X won’t need to miss out on the latest games - as long as they have a strong Wi-fi connection Yes, the premium consoles will both be the best way to play cutting edge console games but if you don’t have $450 or £450 then streaming games on YouTube will be a great way to play Cloud gaming is a part of the future of gaming!