Gameitall 
After weeks of rumours, Google has officially announced their foray into the gaming world with the ambitious Google Stadia during the Game Developer Conference this year. Of course, with an announcement this big there has been a lot of information thrown around, so we decided to to let you know the important stuff about Google new console.
1.) It’s a Streaming System
The Stadia is a cloud-based streaming console, meaning there is no download or physical copies of the game you’re playing. The idea is to eliminate the drawbacks of hardware based issues to deliver high quality gaming on any device. We’ve already seen an idea of this in play with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey during the test of Project Stream, the tech that made it possible to stream the game via the Chrome web-browser.
The Stadia itself will not be a dedicated box or set-top box, but rather a service that connects via the internet through your favourite devices. The onstage demo showed off the game being played via a Chromebook, Phone and immediately to PC, picking up where the game left off. Google’s Majd Baker stated that the Stadia will be able to stream games in 60 fps with HDR and 4K solution, with the possibility of running up to 8K and frame rates up to 120 fps.
2.) The controller
There is one piece of hardware the Stadia will have: The Stadia Controller. The controller will be a traditional looking gamepad more in-line with Playstation’s DualShock but offers some interesting features. The controller links to the Cloud via wi-fi and includes a share button which helps it connect to Youtube and a Google Assistant buttonare added to the controller (we’ll touch more on this in a bit).
If you’re not comfortable with the controller design or don’t care about the extra Google related features, then there is some good news. The controller isn’t necessary to enjoy the Stadia, instead you’ll be able to hook up any peripheral you’d like via USB or Bluetooth.
3.) Google Integration
Google owns a lot of services, from their search engine to Youtube, so of course some of these features are going to be implemented into the service. The biggest of this is the Youtube Integration, which will allow players to stream directly to Youtube at a touch of a button.
The two big features for Youtube Integration includes the ability to play with your favourite content creators directly while watching them livestream called Crowd Play. They also announced a feautre called State Share, which allows players to share what would a save file with their viewers, allowing players to continue a game with a simple link.
The biggest Integration feature has to be the Google Assistant feature. The assistant feature allows players to look up information about their game, including Youtube Walkthroughs and Playthroughs, to help them with getting past the level or developing new strategies.
4.) Games
Currently, we know Assassin’s Creed Odyssey runs well with the system as we’ve already seen the results in Project Stream, but what about other games. id Software has confirmed that their upcoming sequel to 2016’s DOOM will be coming to the Stadia and apparently, it’s not hard to transition the game to Google’s new system. According to id executive producer Marty Stratton, DOOM: Eternal was able to run at 60 frames per second with HDR support on a single Stadia GPU, and it only took the team a few weeks to transition the game.
Google is also dedicated to making their own games with an in-house studio named Stadia Games and Entertainment. The new studio is lead by former Ubisoft and Electronic Arts executive Jade Raymond, who has games like Assassin’s Creed and Star Wars under her belt.
Raymond stated that Stadia Games and Entertainment will be comprised of multiple studios and that the team will work with other developers to bring the games to their system. Current development partners includes Ubisoft, id Software and Q-Games.
5.) Questions and Concerns
While the first glance of the system or service sounds promising there is still some lingering questions.
One of the biggest ones that players have been worried about is ownership, as the Stadia is a streaming based system, there is no ability to physically purchase games, and no hard-drive for digital download. So if you purchase a game on the Stadia, do you own it or rent them, or is it a service much like the PS Now and Xbox Game Pass? That’s not counting the controller, what is the possible price-point? How will the Youtube Integration actually work for streaming?
I personally think the biggest concern is what kind of Internet Requirements will be needed to pull all this off? For example, Pino from our Podcast lives in rural New Brunswick – the best he can do in his area is a low level DSL which stutters when video performance is active and there are many that share the same issue as him. On top of this, some ISP have a data cap which charges for the amount of Internet being used, and also ISP are known to be jerks and throttle connections if there is an over usage.
These are questions that hopefully we’ll have more answers for in the near future as Google is promising that the Stadia will be released later this year. We’ll keep you informed on any information we get on the upcoming system.
