The most ambitious project of Google in the electronic leisure market is going through an identity crisis. Stadia, a kind of "virtual" console that can be accessed from any browser - or with a specific app - it could soon be transformed into a service dedicated primarily to videogame companies and not as up to now, the final consumer. It is what ensures the latest report of the Business Insider consultancy. The Stadia team only dedicates a 20% of its time to the part of the platform focused on the final customer.
The company has decided to give priority to an alternative service baptized as Google Stream that will allow videogame developers to offer the same remote playing experience to players directly, without having to go through a distributor or a specific entertainment platform.
The truth is that the future of the division was already in question from the departure last year from its directive and the cancellation of a videogame study of its own, but now Google's strategy seems definitive. Stadia, renamed as Google Stream, would become a white brand service that other companies will be able to use within their offer of services.
The Business Insider report reveals three companies that Google would have tried to convince to use this technology. Among them are developers such as Bungie or Capcom, but also the Fitness Peloton brand, which last year launched its first game compatible with its advanced static bicycles. Capcom, for its part, would be interested in using Google Stream technology to offer demonstration versions of some of your games.
Bungie is a more complex case because it has just been acquired by Sony, which will pay 3,200 million for the company. Although Sony has promised that Destiny, the most popular title of Bungie, will remain multiplatform, Sony has its own technology for remote games.
The report does not clarify either what will happen to the current Stadia service for final consumers, although it ensures that in the division there are still people who defend it and that works so that it remains active.
Right now Google offers Stadia for free. The player only has to buy the game in the "version" Stadia and can play it from mobiles, tablets, PCs and SmartTV with 1080p resolution and the graphic features that are expected from a high mid-range PC.
In addition to this basic service, Google also offers Stadia Pro for 9.99 euros per month. This service adds the possibility of playing in 4k quality, discounts on some titles, surround sound and a free game catalog that changes month by month, something similar to the offers that Sony and Microsoft offer for console players in the subscription programs PLAYSTATION PLUS and GAMES WITH GOLD, respectively.
Date Of Update: 07 February 2022, 21:38
