It sells at an initial price of $130 with three months of premium service and a 10$ monthly subscription and for the players who play using a controller, the Google stadia controller comes for a price of $70 and an additional price for all the premium games that you want to buy from Stadia.
Not too great, But Not too bad
Google Stadia offers a game-streaming service that requires only a good internet connection (Wifi only) with a speed of at least 10 Mbps and a device, such as a mobile phone (only Pixel 4 or Pixel 3 or Pixel 3a for now) or a laptop or a Chromecast or a personal computer, to stream the games. The games can be played on all these devices although not simultaneously but can be switched back and forth from device to device. Google has announced that Stadia will include a basic free subscription in 2020 that will be limited to a 1080p streaming resolution and the Stadia service can be streamed from any android phone with a wifi connection. Currently, there are 22 premium games including Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Final Fantasy XV, Mortal Kombat 11, etc that are available to buy from the Google Stadia games catalog and more games are said to be released in the upcoming years. The gaming experience that Stadia offers is good without any noticeable glitches or rendering issues and is better than most of its competitors but they do not look as good as they look on a high-end gaming PC or an Xbox one-X or a Playstation 4. The graphics quality was not too bad but it did not look very visually appealing even at 4K resolution. With that being said, Google is working on the further development of Stadia and taking it to the next level.
Google Stadia: How it works
The Stadia streams video games by rendering them on remote servers that are located in Google’s data centers in over 200 countries and territories and stream the video game back to your device while also sending your input simultaneously to the server. According to Google, Stadia can stream at 4K resolution at 60 FPS without any lag with HDR and surround sound. It is said that Stadia will stream 8K resolution at 120 FPS in the future. As the video games are streamed via the cloud, the players are not required to download the games or to buy a physical copy of the games and offer players to buy games directly from Steam and not for renting like some other cloud streaming services. Google has partnered with AMD to develop specialized GPUs for streaming via Stadia and the chips inside the GPUs will be able to deliver 10.7 teraflops of power which is much higher than that of Xbox one-X and the PS4 pro.
Conclusion
Although many say that it is not ready yet and it never will be as good as local gaming machines. It is still the early days of Stadia and judging by Google’s announcements for the future, Stadia promises to be one of the best alternatives to consoles like Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstations and high-end gaming PCs for the people who cannot afford to buy those. Google Stadia can very well change the scope of the gaming industry if it chooses the right choices and makes the right decisions in the future.
