As rumored, Baldur's Gate III was announced, here's the teaser for that specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcP0WdH7rTs There's also a bit more interview/behind-the-scenes type stuff for...
"Stadia Founder's Edition" is up for pre-order for $129, with a Chromecast Ultra, Stadia Controller, and 3 months of subscription for you as well as a giftable 3 months, and... you get to choose your username earlier (they put a weird amount of emphasis on this). Also comes with a complete Destiny 2. Additional controller is $69.
Available initially in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA.
You're also able to just buy games and add them to your Stadia library without paying for the subscription, but it didn't give much detail about how that works.
The Founder's Edition looks like a pretty good deal. A Chromecast Ultra retails for $69 (though is on sale right now for $59), the controller is also $69, and three months of Stadia Pro is $30....
The Founder's Edition looks like a pretty good deal.
A Chromecast Ultra retails for $69 (though is on sale right now for $59), the controller is also $69, and three months of Stadia Pro is $30. That's $170 right there, and if you "own" Destiny 2, (as opposed to it being a part of the games included with Pro, subject to rotation) that's even more, though they didn't make that clear.
They did put a lot of emphasis on the username, and continue to do so on the store page. But looking at the terms, it looks like usernames will have an identifier‒similar to Discord‒but the Founder's usernames won't. It's nothing, but I guess if you care to "be special", there's that.
According to leaks (and their confirmation), there will be a store where you buy the games individually. Seems straight-forward. Pro members can as well, and select games will have exclusive discounts.
Sounds about right. That's what happens when you enter the video game industry and your marketing team KNOWS they need a preorder bonus, but no one's quite sure how to do a preorder bonus for an...
and...you get to choose your username earlier (they put a weird amount of emphasis on this).
Sounds about right. That's what happens when you enter the video game industry and your marketing team KNOWS they need a preorder bonus, but no one's quite sure how to do a preorder bonus for an entire service, rather than a single product.
I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that this would be a flat-rate subscription service that grants access to the whole catalog, like Netflix or Spotify, but I'm disappointed that it's not. If...
I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that this would be a flat-rate subscription service that grants access to the whole catalog, like Netflix or Spotify, but I'm disappointed that it's not. If I'm going to pay full price for games, I'm going to make sure I can actually own them.
I'd happily pay twice the subscription fee they're asking for, maybe more, if all the games were unlocked.
I got to participate in the Project Stream beta and it worked surprisingly well. I like the general idea and the Stadia controller hardware looks nice too. I may still sign up, I'm just sad that the pricing model isn't what I thought it would be.
I think it mostly is, though some parts are still vague at this point. Right now, this is the list of games that they've announced as being available to play with a "Stadia Pro" subscription,...
I think it mostly is, though some parts are still vague at this point. Right now, this is the list of games that they've announced as being available to play with a "Stadia Pro" subscription, which is $9.99/month: https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9363495
They said that you alternatively had the option of just buying games and being able to play them with no subscription, but they didn't go into much detail about it. It seems weird to me, like, say I buy Borderlands 3 and only play that for the next year, and put over 1000 hours into it. Some people absolutely do this with single games. Are they really just going to let me use one of their cloud-gaming servers for free that whole time because I bought one game? Do they think this is just such an uncommon case that it's not worth worrying about?
Well... I'm still not sold. The tech I'm sure is solid, but it's the selection of launch games that gives me pause. Nothing to write home about (IMHO). Still no release date, and lack of clarity...
Well... I'm still not sold. The tech I'm sure is solid, but it's the selection of launch games that gives me pause. Nothing to write home about (IMHO).
Still no release date, and lack of clarity over whether or not you own the games that you get free access to via the monthly subscription. Do I get to keep playing them if I stop paying? Like, is this a Netflix model, or an Audible model? I would hope for the latter, but suspect it's the former.
The good (ish) news is that there is the ability to buy the games outright - but then how does that pan out if and when the platform gets shut down?
I just don't see any incentive to trade in my dedicated hardware and massive library of existing games for this inferior experience. I don't think it presents a particularly good value either, as...
I just don't see any incentive to trade in my dedicated hardware and massive library of existing games for this inferior experience. I don't think it presents a particularly good value either, as the subscription will easily outweigh the cost of a console after a couple years. The inability to buy or sell used games adds a hidden cost for price-sensitive gamers.
I'm also willing to bet that at a 30% of game sales, Googles profit margin on this is too low for them to offer steep discounts or inexpensive games in general. Those GPU compute resources are going to be a lot more expensive than just serving up a few gigabytes of files once or twice. I could easily see a user buying a AAA game in a sale for $10 completely using more than $3 worth of server resources over the course of playing the game.
At the end of the day, users are renting hardware instead of buying it, and renting something is always going to be more expensive than buying it. This will either fail, or Google will be forced to make changes to it's business model to turn it profitable.
Some articles: Ars Technica - Google Stadia requires $130 upfront, $10 per month at November launch Ars Technica - Despite “revolutionary” promises, Stadia’s biz model is pure establishment...
Google's going to have to do a lot better than this if they want me to give them all of my gaming information as well. I'm already on the way out with regards to the vast majority of their...
Google's going to have to do a lot better than this if they want me to give them all of my gaming information as well. I'm already on the way out with regards to the vast majority of their services, and weak sauce like this (barring the price point, I suppose) isn't going to get me to come back.
Assuming this does work on a chromebook and they have periodic sales, this sounds pretty good to a mobile only person like myself. I don't have a gaming PC, xbox or playstation, and it'd be pretty...
Assuming this does work on a chromebook and they have periodic sales, this sounds pretty good to a mobile only person like myself. I don't have a gaming PC, xbox or playstation, and it'd be pretty nice to be able to stream discounted games from a few years ago on the hardware I do own.
I preordered a founder's unit myself. I can see myself squeezing a lot of mileage out of being able to just stream games from random devices wherever I have strong internet connection. I do have a...
I preordered a founder's unit myself. I can see myself squeezing a lot of mileage out of being able to just stream games from random devices wherever I have strong internet connection. I do have a decent gaming rig and a PlayStation 4 for fighting games that Stadia won't be able to displace, but if additional controller-friendly titles for MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV debuted on Stadia, I could probably do away with keeping my PC hardware up to date. It's not like my dev work is particularly computationally intensive.
As rumored, Baldur's Gate III was announced, here's the teaser for that specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcP0WdH7rTs
There's also a bit more interview/behind-the-scenes type stuff for it shown in the Stadia stream, but not really anything significant.
Other major game announcements that they showed trailers for as coming to Stadia:
Pricing-wise, "Stadia Pro" is $9.99/month (USD).
"Stadia Founder's Edition" is up for pre-order for $129, with a Chromecast Ultra, Stadia Controller, and 3 months of subscription for you as well as a giftable 3 months, and... you get to choose your username earlier (they put a weird amount of emphasis on this). Also comes with a complete Destiny 2. Additional controller is $69.
Available initially in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA.
You're also able to just buy games and add them to your Stadia library without paying for the subscription, but it didn't give much detail about how that works.
The Founder's Edition looks like a pretty good deal.
A Chromecast Ultra retails for $69 (though is on sale right now for $59), the controller is also $69, and three months of Stadia Pro is $30. That's $170 right there, and if you "own" Destiny 2, (as opposed to it being a part of the games included with Pro, subject to rotation) that's even more, though they didn't make that clear.
They did put a lot of emphasis on the username, and continue to do so on the store page. But looking at the terms, it looks like usernames will have an identifier‒similar to Discord‒but the Founder's usernames won't. It's nothing, but I guess if you care to "be special", there's that.
According to leaks (and their confirmation), there will be a store where you buy the games individually. Seems straight-forward. Pro members can as well, and select games will have exclusive discounts.
Sounds about right. That's what happens when you enter the video game industry and your marketing team KNOWS they need a preorder bonus, but no one's quite sure how to do a preorder bonus for an entire service, rather than a single product.
Discord boasts how you can choose your identifier as a perk for Nitro. It's stupid, but it works.
Ahhhhhh, if only I too could convince myself to care about status symbols.
I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that this would be a flat-rate subscription service that grants access to the whole catalog, like Netflix or Spotify, but I'm disappointed that it's not. If I'm going to pay full price for games, I'm going to make sure I can actually own them.
I'd happily pay twice the subscription fee they're asking for, maybe more, if all the games were unlocked.
I got to participate in the Project Stream beta and it worked surprisingly well. I like the general idea and the Stadia controller hardware looks nice too. I may still sign up, I'm just sad that the pricing model isn't what I thought it would be.
I think it mostly is, though some parts are still vague at this point. Right now, this is the list of games that they've announced as being available to play with a "Stadia Pro" subscription, which is $9.99/month: https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9363495
They said that you alternatively had the option of just buying games and being able to play them with no subscription, but they didn't go into much detail about it. It seems weird to me, like, say I buy Borderlands 3 and only play that for the next year, and put over 1000 hours into it. Some people absolutely do this with single games. Are they really just going to let me use one of their cloud-gaming servers for free that whole time because I bought one game? Do they think this is just such an uncommon case that it's not worth worrying about?
Well... I'm still not sold. The tech I'm sure is solid, but it's the selection of launch games that gives me pause. Nothing to write home about (IMHO).
Still no release date, and lack of clarity over whether or not you own the games that you get free access to via the monthly subscription. Do I get to keep playing them if I stop paying? Like, is this a Netflix model, or an Audible model? I would hope for the latter, but suspect it's the former.
The good (ish) news is that there is the ability to buy the games outright - but then how does that pan out if and when the platform gets shut down?
Giant Bomb talked over it and said you have access to the games as long as the subscription is active. So not like audible.
I just don't see any incentive to trade in my dedicated hardware and massive library of existing games for this inferior experience. I don't think it presents a particularly good value either, as the subscription will easily outweigh the cost of a console after a couple years. The inability to buy or sell used games adds a hidden cost for price-sensitive gamers.
I'm also willing to bet that at a 30% of game sales, Googles profit margin on this is too low for them to offer steep discounts or inexpensive games in general. Those GPU compute resources are going to be a lot more expensive than just serving up a few gigabytes of files once or twice. I could easily see a user buying a AAA game in a sale for $10 completely using more than $3 worth of server resources over the course of playing the game.
At the end of the day, users are renting hardware instead of buying it, and renting something is always going to be more expensive than buying it. This will either fail, or Google will be forced to make changes to it's business model to turn it profitable.
Some articles:
Google's going to have to do a lot better than this if they want me to give them all of my gaming information as well. I'm already on the way out with regards to the vast majority of their services, and weak sauce like this (barring the price point, I suppose) isn't going to get me to come back.
Assuming this does work on a chromebook and they have periodic sales, this sounds pretty good to a mobile only person like myself. I don't have a gaming PC, xbox or playstation, and it'd be pretty nice to be able to stream discounted games from a few years ago on the hardware I do own.
I preordered a founder's unit myself. I can see myself squeezing a lot of mileage out of being able to just stream games from random devices wherever I have strong internet connection. I do have a decent gaming rig and a PlayStation 4 for fighting games that Stadia won't be able to displace, but if additional controller-friendly titles for MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV debuted on Stadia, I could probably do away with keeping my PC hardware up to date. It's not like my dev work is particularly computationally intensive.