If you haven’t already heard, Google has just announced its new gaming platform, Stadia, at the Game Developers Conference in San Fransico. This new platform is unlike anything anyone has tried to achieve before and offers more than I think anyone could have imagined. The ambitions set out by Google may even have just won them the console war, without actually building a console.
Before we go into why though, just check out the official reveal trailer below first:
Google Stadia – Official Launch Trailer
The future of gaming is not a box.
That is a powerful statement, and I’ll tell you why. There have been a few services who have tried to bring similar streaming services to gamers in the past, and none has really ever taken off. You’ve had the likes of , PlayStation Now, even Xbox Games Pass. The problem is, they all rely on your hardware, and obviously a decent internet connection.
They’re also all designed to work on one system, and one system alone. I’ve tried PS Now on numerous occasions as well, during its beta phase and after full release and it’s absolute trash. Not only do you pay for the service, then you have to pay for half the games and even with a decent connection the lag and drop in fps and well everything about it just sucks.
What Google has done though is designed it so your hardware doesn’t matter. Neither does your device. All you need is a simple internet connection and the click of a button or tap of a screen. With that, you’ll be whisked away to your favourite games in full 1080p HD at 60fps. You can even jump from device to device with ease too. Want to play on your PC, fine. Got to head out in the car? Switch it to your phone with minimal delay and pick up where you left off.
All because Google is using their data centre as the ‘platform’. So every little thing that happens, every process, every calculation, literally everything will be run through that data centre. Even the controller.
That’s right. Using WiFi, the new Google Stadia Controller will connect to your game directly in the data centre, so as you move your game between devices, the controller jumps along for the ride. No need to re-pair with your new device, or unplug any wires and stick them back in, just pick up and play. But you don’t need that controller to play, because you can use any of your existing methods to play whether it be keyboard and mouse or even an Xbox One controller. Stadia is a platform for all to enjoy, and to enjoy games the way they want.
What’s most impressive though is that a quick comparison was made with Stadia’s graphical power against the two leading consoles of the current console generation. And it not only beat them it blew them out of the water, measuring in at 10.7 teraflops, which is more than both the PS4 (4.2) and Xbox One (6.0) combined. And it hasn’t even had to build a box to case it’s equipment in. Hence why it may well have just won the console war, without even actually building a console.
There was so much more revealed as well, but I won’t go into to much detail as I’ll only bore you, but the news you will want to know is that Stadia will launch in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK and most of Europe. What kind if internet connection it will require wasn’t mentioned, but if you look at streaming services like Netflix that can stream 4K over a pretty basic 30mb fibre connection, then there is no reason why you would have to fork out on a big old expensive package from your ISP.
We’ve left the full conference for you down below, be sure to check it out if you don’t want to miss a thing.
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