While game-streaming is not yet something you can count on for the newbies in the business, you can always count on Google to deliver something exceptional. The company unveiled Stadia, its cloud gaming platform, during a Game Developers Conference keynote in San Francisco.
Stadia is a decentralized platform that is not tied to any specific hardware, nor to a specialized box in your home or your hands. It is instead a streaming platform that sends the game data over the cloud to any platform using an internet connection.
Google promises a cloud computing power that is more than a PS4 and XBox One X combined.
How does Stadia work?
What Google has done is to use its own servers to store and run games, from where you can connect and play at any time of your choice on any internet-connected device that has access to Chrome. This could be your desktop, the laptop, TV, phone and even a tablet.
When playing games on Stadia, you won’t have to make any updates or install before you can begin, no! The games are already in the their most up-to-date version – the way you’d stream a song on Spotify or watch a movie off Netflix.
Google states that at launch, the platform will stream in 4K at 60 FPS with surround sound and HDR support, and the company is planning to support 8K resolution and frame-rates upwards of 120 FPS in the future.
How to find new games on Stadia
The easiest way that you will discover new games is via YouTube. Google showcased a Stadia controller that includes a button that will let users capture and share game play straight onto YouTube.
You can do this by joining other streamers, especially those that you subscribe to, while they’re playing through the Crowd Play feature. Crowd Play basically lets streamers create a queue of viewers who can jump in and play a multi-player game with them without a hustle.
Alternatively, you can get games through a Google link to a friend’s game called State Share or via advertisements that let you play the game by clicking a link on a YouTube video. The State Share feature allows you create moments for friends or stream viewers to play from exactly the same point in a game.
YouTube gaming content has an audience of more than 200 million people every day.
Availability
There’s no mention of price, or detailed specifications yet. But the platform is set for launch this year with more release details from Google coming this summer.
Microsoft is also reported to be working on an xCloud game streaming service that will be unveiled later this year, for gamers to stream Xbox games to PCs, consoles, and mobile devices.
