So I have a fair few hobbies, and they are not cheap. Plus I own my own home and I am the sole breadwinner. So when there are new games that come out, my first question is always, "Can I run it?" I don't have a desktop PC I can upgrade (though I do want to save up for one) and I don't have a console from the last-gen. Plus good luck getting a next-gen console. Add to that the cost of graphics cards recently, even for older models, has gotten ridiculous, the idea of playing a next-gen game like Cyberpunk 2077 was out of the question.
And then there was Stadia.
Stadia was running an offer. Preorder the game, and get a Chromecast ultra and a stadia controller for free. So for a £60 game, I was getting £90 of gear for free. And of course, my internet connection was good, so the option to go down this route was perfect. But what is Stadia and why do I like it? Stadia is a cloud streaming gaming platform. Google has in their data centres an elastic set up so that they can accommodate many players at the same time. Each node is running the following hardware (or a few of the following)
Custom 2.7GHz hyper-threaded x86 CPU with AVX2 SIMD and 9.5MB L2+L3 cache
Custom AMD GPU with HBM2 memory and 56 compute units, capable of 10.7 teraflops
16GB of RAM with up to 484GB/s of performance
SSD cloud storage
So in effect, these are our virtual consoles/PCs, sat in a data centre ready to spin up a game. The output of the game is streamed to your PC, smart device, Stadia app on the TV/chromecast, and your controller (stadia for tv, but on other devices use what you have), talks back sending your controller input. There are of course caveats. You need a stable and fast internet connection (faster still for 4K streaming), and you need a good upload speed for the sending back of the device inputs.
Within gaming circles, much of the criticism of this system is based around the concept of latency — the lag between your controller input and what you see happening on screen. And on this point, gamers feel that having a dedicated machine in your house is better. Especially when a second can mean the difference in a win or loss in a PvP game on the net, such as Destiny 2. Others would contend that it means you don't own your games. Then there is also the matter of what you are getting for a subscription to Stadia vs the trivial streaming game platforms.
So I have a few counter-arguments.
Is the game disc enough? Quite often these days the game disc is not the game. You have day zero patches, and further updates on many games. Plus running a game directly from the disc is likely not the best way to play the game due to the IO latency of using the disc compared to having it on the hard drive.
Latency of play is still an issue. You may have next to zero latency between the gamepad and console/pc, you still have the latency between players due to each player's own internet situation. So I feel the latency question is not really fair. Furthermore, the latency of Stadia seems less of an issue in different countries. So don't let the experience of rural USA influence you if you live in a city in the UK.
PvP is more Democratic. Because the game is centrally on a Google server, you can't cheat. You can mod it. For games like Destiny 2 or similar you down to how good a player you are and nothing more. No bot farming or anything like that.
Seamless gaming. You can pause a game on one machine and pick up on another.
No downloads. Games these days are huge. Their updates are huge. And even a terabyte of disk space is gobbled up by just a couple of games. You might be waiting an afternoon to play a game while the updates are downloaded and installed. No so with Stadia. Updates are just there the moment they are live. You can play a game on the day of release.
It's not the Netflix of games - it is something else. Stadia is free. Yes free. So you can make an account and pay nothing. Zero. And there are games you can play immediately for zero investment of money. Destiny 2, Super Bomber Man, Crayta. And if you buy a game, that is it, you bought the game and can play it. Again no further charges. So why subscribe? Is there not a rotating library of games to play as Netflix has with movies and shows. Sort of. When you subscribe you unlock a few things. The first is 4k game streaming. The other is Pro games — generally a list of indie games (and a few bigger ones) you can play for free. If you end your subscription you lose access but get them back when you subscribe again.
No more worrying about hardware updates/can I bag the latest console? Quite simply the investment is minimal, almost zero, to be able to play some next-gen games.
Stable Ports. The benefit of the hardware being the same for all players is that Stadia can have a team dedicated to porting a game to the system, and making sure it is stable.
No queuing. Subscriber or not, you boot up a game, you play. Unlike some rival streaming services.
For my experience, I've had great fun with Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Little Nightmares 2, and even family-friendly party games like Cake Bash (I have 2 Stadia controllers and a third on the way). Resident Evil Village is out soon (how I am getting my third controller), which I am very excited about. Now do I think Stadia replaces consoles and high-end gaming PCs? Of course not. But as a democratising means for people to game without such large start-up costs, I think the benefit to games creators is massive. Plus there is also the question of what is possible with players all playing on in one system environment? What would the technology enable?
- Chris
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