\nFrom the beginning of Stadia\u2019s journey as Project Stream, to even now in its remaining months before the big sleep, Stadia has oozed potential. Potential that Stadia\u2019s biggest decision makers squandered.
\nFailure or not, Stadia had its successes too
\nIt offers something that at least currently, no other cloud gaming service has. An exceedingly convenient way to boot up a game and play. Just about anywhere.
\nOf course, you could make the argument that GeForce NOW, Luna, and cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass all offer the same thing. And, you wouldn\u2019t be entirely incorrect. But at least in part, that argument isn\u2019t accurate. Stadia offered the widest compatible list of devices with which to play on for quite some time. And while it didn\u2019t have the largest game library, it worked better than all the rest. The underlying technology that Stadia was built upon still outshines competitors. Making it much more convenient than the other options.
\nYes, there were hiccups in its early days. There were for xCloud and GeForce NOW too. But very quickly, Stadia improved by leaps and bounds on the technical front. Offering the lowest latency, leading to a buttery smooth gaming experience. That said, I have no illusions about Stadia\u2019s shortcomings. For me, Stadia went from cool to infuriating within the span of a week during its launch. Because at the time it just didn\u2019t feel ready.
\nDespite having a pretty quick and reliable internet connection, attempting to launch games on Stadia resulted in a laggy mess on the Chromecast Ultra and the desktop website. But like I said, eventually that changed. And my experiences with it got better and better.
\nThe Cyberpunk 2077 launch is, I think, a great example of this success. Even my experience was vastly improved well before this point. While I didn\u2019t personally have any bugs with the game on PS5, I grabbed it on Stadia anyway. And it looked just as good as it did on console. It played smoothly too. And last year I booted up Far Cry 6 shortly after its launch and never had a single issue with latency. All on a wireless connection with the CCU. A completely different experience from what I had back in 2019.
\nAnd for many people that believed in the product, Stadia was a convenient way to pop into a game with the little time they may have had for games. No downloads, no updates, and virtually no waiting. The service definitely mattered. To a majority of its users and to the industry.
\nThe tech was solid, but the business model was not
\nEven through a good few months of growing pains, Stadia tech was solid and eventually offered a great gaming experience. Stadia\u2019s biggest failure was its business model. Google had an uphill battle convincing consumers to buy into Stadia\u2019s full price for games offering. And like it or not, this is an argument that was made by many from the very beginning.
\nWhile I personally believed in Stadia and wanted it to succeed, I can understand people finding it hard to justify paying the same price for games as on other platforms. All of which were more established. The world also wasn\u2019t ready, it seems, for a cloud-only gaming option. GeForce NOW does ok, but I suspect a good portion of its subscribers also own at least some sort of PC to play games on. And merely use GeForce NOW as a way to play those games in the cloud when they can\u2019t play them locally.
\nCloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass is part of Game Pass. And it\u2019s not the only way to play games. Most of the titles you can play in the cloud you can also install on PC or on your console. Cloud is again, simply an alternative. And with Luna, it\u2019s a cloud-only option, but it\u2019s also a subscription service. You never pay for a single game. You subscribe to what Amazon calls \u2018Channels\u2019 and you can play any of the games that are in those channels. For a single monthly fee.
\nIf Stadia had offered its service like any of these others, I think it would have stood a better chance at coming out the other end.
\nGoogle wasn\u2019t willing to invest in its own product
\nThis doesn\u2019t go for everyone on the Stadia team. There were many that were outspokenly passionate about it and worked very hard on it only to see things end up failing. However, it\u2019s hard to ignore that some at Google clearly didn\u2019t believe in the vision. At the very least not as much as Google would have you believe.
\nGoogle said on numerous occasions that it had no intention of closing down Stadia. It was committed to the service and to its users. Even as recent as a couple of months ago the public was told that Stadia \u201cwas not\u201d shutting down this Summer. Summer came and went, Stadia didn\u2019t shut down. So I suppose that wasn\u2019t a dishonest statement. Another thing to consider is that ultimately, the confirmation of the service not shutting down came from the official Stadia Twitter.
\nBut as is evident from yesterday\u2019s announcement, Many at Stadia weren\u2019t privy to the plans for the service up until the end. And I have to believe that whoever ran the Stadia socials at that time of that post in July, probably wasn\u2019t aware Google was considering calling it quits a couple of months later. Google stopped willing to invest in Stadia long before then, though.
\nBack in February of 2021 it announced it was shutting down its first-party studio Stadia Games & Entertainment helmed by industry veteran Jade Raymond, which now runs her own Studio working with PlayStation. And I think this was a big turning point that alluded to the higher ups checking out. If Google wasn\u2019t willing to commit to the time and effort it would take to bring exclusive games to the service, how could anyone believe that it was really invested at all for the long term.
\nWhich leads into a related issue. The content.
\nContent has always been an issue
\nStadia had some great content. There were even some fun exclusives. But, I think by now we can all agree that Stadia simply didn\u2019t have enough to draw in enough users. Any AAA games that it did have were available on nearly every other platform. And honestly, that\u2019s great. But Stadia could have used at least one or two major AAA exclusives.
\nAccording to a report from earlier today, it seems there were at one point, plans to collaborate with Hideo Kojima to launch a Stadia-exclusive follow-up to Death Stranding. But it\u2019s been reported that ultimate the decision was made to call off the project and not proceed because Kojima\u2019s plan was for the game to be a strictly solo experience. And it was believed by Phil Harrison and potentially others that there was no longer a market for strictly single player games.
\nThat\u2019s obviously wrong. As any number of single player games that have found wild success the last couple of years can prove. And it just goes to show one layer of the problems that were present with Stadia\u2019s content. Google reportedly paid millions to bring titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin\u2019s Creed Valhalla to the service. But then made the decision to turn down an exclusive from arguably one of the most recognizable names in gaming.
\nGranted I don\u2019t think much would have changed if Google had kept the Kojima project. It still probably would have needed years of development time and I don\u2019t think Google would have waited for that.
\nOverall, Stadia has ended up a failure but one that will surely continue to have a big impact on the gaming industry. It pushed Google\u2019s competitors to improve their own cloud gaming offerings. And while Stadia may have been a failure, it was a cool product that will live on as fond memories for many users.
\nThe post Opinion: The Failure Of Stadia Is A Major Bummer appeared first on Android Headlines.
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![](\"https:\/\/plus.maciejpiasecki.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Assassins-Creed-Valhalla-Stadia.jpg\")
\nSource: ndroidheadlines.com <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"