Today, the Google Stadia streaming service officially launched for those who picked up the Founder or Premier Edition.
Well, sort of anyway. Some people have it, a lot of people don't, we certainly don't and it appears the team at Stadia give different answers to different people on when you will actually be able to access it. I've also seen plenty of people whose orders have been cancelled without warning or explanation. Even worse still, some people have been sent their hardware without an access code. Google have, so far, done a terrible job at communicating on Stadia and so the initial launch doesn't seem to have gone down well at all.
Oh, they also have the most ridiculous launch trailer I've ever seen:
Direct Link
The more I think about it, the more amazed I am at just how badly this has been managed. Take a look at the actual proper Stadia website for example, there's not a contact or support link in sight.
So they originally had a tiny lineup, then did a Reddit AMA where they said a bunch of the hooks they used to get people in weren't actually ready at all and hastily announced a few more games just before release. Nothing about it has so far looked like they've been in any way prepared to launch a gaming service.
One thing that I've seen confirmed now, as many suspected, is that input lag does seem to be a real problem. Google talked big about their powerful hardware and everything they were doing to bring it down, but it seems they haven't solved anything at all so far. Looking at the Eurogamer article, the input lag table included was quite impressive. This video from The Post also makes it look pretty awful.
From what Jason Schreier of Kotaku said on Twitter from "one person involved" that "preorders were below expectations". I really can't get my head around that. Somehow, they didn't get as many preorders as they had hoped and simultaneously failed to get them into the hands of people who did buy into it early. Words are honestly failing me right now. Incredible.
Eventually, at some point we will get access to it to report on how it works when played on a Linux desktop. When that is, I can't tell you, Google can't either. We're playing delivery bingo right now.
If I would try to be picky, there was still slight lag while moving mouse. I've noticed it when I was looking for it, but during the normal gameplay it never bothered me - even in close combat or while aiming at moving enemy. If I was running and moving mouse sideways the same time, rotation was sometimes little stuttery, like instead of updating mouse position every frame it was updating every second frame. Moving mouse while standing still don't have this effect.
But this is all I could find. Image quality is stunning. I've got overclocked i7-7700K and Titan Xp GPU (use this PC for Deep Learning) so I'm used to nice looking graphics and visuals in Destiny 2 via Stadia are in my opinion - gorgeous!
Also, just realised - my wife was looking at YouTube videos a notebook in the same network while I was testing it. Didn't even noticed. :)
Last edited by Skipperro on 21 November 2019 at 3:26 pm UTC
Quoting: SuperTuxMy hardware shipped today, ETA within next two days. Not sure when I will see the code though, but it's an improvement over the December estimate.Mine is here right now, on my desk. No code. Their support team literally doesn't have a clue when it will come.
I wonder how many canceled pre-orders?
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: SuperTuxMy hardware shipped today, ETA within next two days. Not sure when I will see the code though, but it's an improvement over the December estimate.Mine is here right now, on my desk. No code. Their support team literally doesn't have a clue when it will come.
I wonder how many canceled pre-orders?
I've just got my hardware, still unpacked, but I've received code earlier via email. Check your mailbox, it should be there.
Quoting: SkipperroIt's not. I do know how to check an inbox ;)Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: SuperTuxMy hardware shipped today, ETA within next two days. Not sure when I will see the code though, but it's an improvement over the December estimate.Mine is here right now, on my desk. No code. Their support team literally doesn't have a clue when it will come.
I wonder how many canceled pre-orders?
I've just got my hardware, still unpacked, but I've received code earlier via email. Check your mailbox, it should be there.
Quoting: KimyrielleQuoting: subI somehow get the feeling there are many different stakeholders that just don't want to see this thing to be successful.
I am one of them. I want it to fail and fail hard. Because I don't like monopolies. We all know how this is going to end, right? Right now, Stadia is (or rather, wants to be) the Netflix of gaming. Then the big studios (ahem EA, Ubisoft, MS etc), will do the same thing the big content creators did to Netflix: Declaring 100% of their own content "exclusive" to their own streaming platforms. Google will react to that by tossing big bucks at developing their own exclusive stuff, because they can and want to stay in business. And now players will have to pay $$$ a month to 5-6 different platforms to get access to a halfway comprehensive library of games. The publishers will laugh at how we're now spending three times more money on gaming than in the olden days, when people used to buy good games in Steam sales, and laugh even harder at how they can dictate both prices and terms consumes without them having the slightest chance to do anything about it.
Brave new world.
We're already living in that world, it seems.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/20/20974324/amazon-cloud-gaming-service-streaming-2020-twitch-google-stadia-microsoft-xcloud
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