Google Stadia Pro Coming November 2019 for $130 Up Front, $10 Monthly with 31 Games at Launch

[silentbogo]

Stadia a wan Device with no local Storage

The experience will be powered by the following specs:

• Custom x86 processor clocked at 2.7GHz w/ AVX2 SIMD and 9.5MB of L2+L3 cache
• Custom AMD GPU w/ HBM2 memory, 56 compute units, and 10.7TFLOPs
• 16GB of RAM (shared between CPU and GPU), up to 484GB/s of bandwidth
• SSD cloud storage

I highly doubt that's the "proper" spec. The only teardown got taken down awhile ago, and wayback machine had no chance to index it.
First of all, it's way too small to even house a passively-cooled dual-core Ryzen v1202b w/ Vega3. Even less so Vega 56.
Second of all, it costs less than HBM2 stacks alone. A much weaker i7-8809G is listed at $546 MSRP and only has 24CUs and 4GB HBM.
I think that source (or sources) had it confused with something... It looks suspiciously like overblown Core G or fantasy version of Subor Z2, probably composed by someone who knows nothing of either.

 

[lexluthermiester]

For this price you can get 250 months to use Google service

And that's my point. You get to use a service. You get access to something with no guarantees that the titles you enjoy most will be there in future. No thank you.

In my opinion its very good value for money in long term.

Except at the end of the day you don't own anything that you can replay later. Yes, that strikes me as such a wonderful value...(note sarcasm)..

Yeah... 510USD in the first year of service if you counting the the controller

 

[Space Lynx]

It would just be nice if we could get a yes or no on if expansions and all DLC are included for those games, who wants to play the base game of Destiny 2 when its 3rd expansion is almost out...

 

[XiGMAKiD]

Every 2-4 years we spend around 2.5k$ on PC upgrades to able play at 4k 60fps. For this price you can get 250 months to use Google service without headache of high electricity bills or your system not beenig able to run latest games on 4k 60fps. In my opinion its very good value for money in long term.

PC upgrades give you the warm and fuzzy feeling that no cloud gaming could ever gives to you.
Cloud gaming and PC gaming is like public transport and personal vehicle. I personally will try to stick to PC gaming and personal vehicle whenever possible.

 

[64K]

You get access to something with no guarantees that the titles you enjoy most will be there in future. No thank you.

Good point and it's not made very frequently when this subject is brought up. I'm probably not typical but I sometimes go back and replay games from the late 90s and up that I really enjoyed and some of those wouldn't be considered popular but I like them. Would a service like this still have today's games available to play 20 years from now? Would they pick and choose what is available based on popularity of the game?

 

[rtwjunkie]

It seems to me that on a pure subscription model, games put on now may not be there even 5 years from now, much less 20. Netflix for example, rotates movies out based on licensing deals and also movies just not being watched very much.

This would be unacceptable for Stadia though, assuming it lasts even a decade. With Stadia you have to also buy the games. If those games end up disappearing later it becomes a complete no-deal for even more people. Even Steam and GOG, as two examples allow you to keep playing or downloading a game that they no longer offer for sale.

 

[Vayra86]

Good point and it's not made very frequently when this subject is brought up. I'm probably not typical but I sometimes go back and replay games from the late 90s and up that I really enjoyed and some of those wouldn't be considered popular but I like them. Would a service like this still have today's games available to play 20 years from now? Would they pick and choose what is available based on popularity of the game?

Isn't it though?

The only people you hear being 'pro-' to this sort of gaming are the absolute casuals that still like to game from time to time. You know, the people who got into busy lives and will never invest as much time in gaming as they'd actually want, realize that and look for a model that suits that - but here is the kicker: they only look for that model because of cost and ease of use! For them buying a new GPU and 'getting back into the game' is a hassle with a very small payoff, they even forget to keep their launcher(s) updated and when they do want to game, they're left staring at a download/install process. I'm totally not seeing how Stadia will be cheaper for this group. The startup fee is a dealbreaker, and they still have hardware that still needs its updates, they are still left in an ecosystem that changes all the time - and it comes with limited, controlled choice. Quite a few drawbacks.

Everyone else who likes gaming and is willing to invest more than a few hours of gaming per week, will echo what you say - especially those at age 20 or older. And that is a massive target audience, and more importantly, its a wealthy target audience. They don't need to cut corners and yes they like their backwards compatibility, its why they stuck to a PC instead of a console.

So what remains? A very vocal group of youngsters who have zero experience, are gullible, and grow up in an on-demand/rental society. They are not surrounded by ownership but by subscriptions - from their phones (a sizeable part of monthly expense for those 12-18 of age) to all the services they might use on those phones, to all the others bits of daily life now permeated with 'use it now, pay later' systems. For them, a service like Stadia is a twisted form of 'ownership' when in fact all they get is a very limited hardware terminal that becomes a brick when the sub ever ends. So I doubt that it will remain popular for this group in the long run, in that sense I think this service has a rather quick expiry date altogether.

'tis a strange world we live in.

 

[Midland Dog]

Stadia a wan Device with no local Storage

The experience will be powered by the following specs:

• Custom x86 processor clocked at 2.7GHz w/ AVX2 SIMD and 9.5MB of L2+L3 cache
• Custom AMD GPU w/ HBM2 memory, 56 compute units, and 10.7TFLOPs
• 16GB of RAM (shared between CPU and GPU), up to 484GB/s of bandwidth
• SSD cloud storage

vega 10/zen 2 soc by the sound of things

 

[silentbogo]

vega 10/zen 2 soc by the sound of things

Still a huge miss... All you need is something powerful enough for streaming at 4K@60Hz and send few KBs of input data, and judging by a measly 5V1A power brick it could only be a low-low-power ARM...
Found the proper spec for Ultra:

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Google_Chromecast_Ultra_(NC2-6A5-D)

Power brick is only so big, 'cause it has a USB-C to Ethernet interface built-in.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The startup fee is a dealbreaker, and they still have hardware that still needs its updates, they are still left in an ecosystem that changes all the time - and it comes with limited, controlled choice. Quite a few drawbacks.

This. And at the end of the day you own nothing but a useless piece of hardware collecting dust. At least with a PC or a game console, it might be out-dated but it will still run and do what it was originally designed to.

 

[bug]

I can't see many people going for this, not when you have to purchase the games, what happens if Stadia doesn't do well and eventually folds? can you transfer the game licenses over to another platform? Doesn't seem likely, or you could just buy a console for double the cost of the founders edition and no subs (barring psn and xbox live though these aren't a requirement for console gaming.) and keep the games you purchase. They should have stuck with a pure subcription version, I honestly can't see this gaining all that much traction and will likely be another Google company fail in a couple of years

It could also happen that Stadia does well and then Google decides to close it anyway and replace it with a couple of inferior products anyway
And what's up with the Chromecast Ultra requirement? Many TVs have built-in Google Cast nowadays.

Edit: Also can we stop saying "buy" when we talk about games? The only way to buy a game these days is to buy the rights. Anything else is just licensing the right to use a copy. And use as the publisher deems fit, not necessarily as you'd like.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Edit: Also can we stop saying "buy" when we talk about games? The only way to buy a game these days is to buy the rights. Anything else is just licensing the right to use a copy. And use as the publisher deems fit, not necessarily as you'd like.

You need to check out GOG...

 

[Prima.Vera]

That price system is just insulting and callous.

 

[Vayra86]

It could also happen that Stadia does well and then Google decides to close it anyway and replace it with a couple of inferior products anyway
And what's up with the Chromecast Ultra requirement? Many TVs have built-in Google Cast nowadays.

Edit: Also can we stop saying "buy" when we talk about games? The only way to buy a game these days is to buy the rights. Anything else is just licensing the right to use a copy. And use as the publisher deems fit, not necessarily as you'd like.

No we cannot, because we are still buying games, not renting them and nobody ever told us the license had an expiry date.

The contract is in place at the original sale price. They do try really hard making us believe it isn't, by making the base game just about useless over time, but that's another story

 

[lexluthermiester]

No we cannot, because we are still buying games, not renting them and nobody ever told us the license had an expiry date.

Exactly!

 

[TheTechGuy1337]

Make an app for android and ios for this streaming feature......and by god I will buy into it. I think it makes great sense if you are traveling alot, but want a good game to play. People in major cities have the connection speed. I wouldn't use more than 1080p on a mobile device anyways. So the 720p on a phone.....perfectly acceptable. And look at how small the bandwidth requirement would be at 720p. Even prepaid can do that.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Make an app for android and ios for this streaming feature......and by god I will buy into it. I think it makes great sense if you are traveling alot, but want a good game to play. People in major cities have the connection speed. I wouldn't use more than 1080p on a mobile device anyways. So the 720p on a phone.....perfectly acceptable. And look at how small the bandwidth requirement would be at 720p. Even prepaid can do that.

Oh? And what controls are you going to use? Bluetooth controller perhaps? Android does have very good K&M support but iOS is less so, but are people really going to tote around a K&M with their phone? Even a controller might be tough. The only thing left is the touchscreen, and I say No Thank You! There are some things that are interesting ideas, but just not practical.

 

[Splinterdog]

This has to be attractive to those who don't have the hardware and may be more casual gamers, but I personally don't want the cloud to process my games for me. I enjoy the physical presence of my own PC that I built myself.
On the other hand, if I were to choose a subscription service, the Microsoft XBox Game Pass For PC would be the more attractive model because it isn't cloud based gaming per se, although I'm loathe to pay any kind of subscription for gaming anyway.

 

[lexluthermiester]

although I'm loathe to pay any kind of subscription for gaming anyway.

Right there with you. The only subscription model I like is magazines. Nintendo Power was my favorite subscription of all time. But that was the kind of subscription where you actually got something to keep for your money...

 

[TheTechGuy1337]

Oh? And what controls are you going to use? Bluetooth controller perhaps? Android does have very good K&M support but iOS is less so, but are people really going to tote around a K&M with their phone? Even a controller might be tough. The only thing left is the touchscreen, and I say No Thank You! There are some things that are interesting ideas, but just not practical.

For us business oriented folks, we carry these things around called backpacks. The controller being carried around would not be a problem. I would say Bluetooth controllers are more ideal. And I would highly suspect the company that created my idea would also have their own controller. It would work with android/iOS. It could be used through your phone or tablets touchscreen controls, the physical controller, or a wireless mouse and keyboard. The mobile market is huge and getting bigger by the day. We have a new generation of kids playing a lot more mobile games. That number will continue to grow. I carry a lot of work related stuff with me so my electronics need to be small.

Let's put this in a better scenario. I just had a business trip last week in Phoenix AZ. My backpack had my work laptop, tablet, nintendo ds, work stuff, and chargers inside it. I have a surface laptop. It is both small form factor and light in weight. It is by no means a gaming laptop. I get back to the hotel after a day of work, grab my laptop, hook it up via hdmi to the hotel tv, open the gaming app, grab my controller, and now I have a mobile console in the palm of my hands without any extra weight added into it besides the controller. I can stream my games freely to the laptop and game happily from the tv.


It only takes 1mbps to stream a 720p stream.....easy enough for a hotel. It is easier on my hotspot.

 

[lexluthermiester]

For us business oriented folks, we carry these things around called backpacks. The controller being carried around would not be a problem. I would say Bluetooth controllers are more ideal. And I would highly suspect the company that created my idea would also have their own controller. It would work with android/iOS. It could be used through your phone or tablets touchscreen controls, the physical controller, or a wireless mouse and keyboard. The mobile market is huge and getting bigger by the day. We have a new generation of kids playing a lot more mobile games. That number will continue to grow. I carry a lot of work related stuff with me so my electronics need to be small.

Let's put this in a better scenario. I just had a business trip last week in Phoenix AZ. My backpack had my work laptop, tablet, nintendo ds, work stuff, and chargers inside it. I have a surface laptop. It is both small form factor and light in weight. It is by no means a gaming laptop. I get back to the hotel after a day of work, grab my laptop, hook it up via hdmi to the hotel tv, open the gaming app, grab my controller, and now I have a mobile console in the palm of my hands without any extra weight added into it besides the controller. I can stream my games freely to the laptop and game happily from the tv.


It only takes 1mbps to stream a 720p stream.....easy enough for a hotel. It is easier on my hotspot.

But let's be honest, how many people like you are there? You, and your usage scenario, are not the target audience.

 

[TheTechGuy1337]

You mean people that travel around the world for their companies? A lot more than you think. Our management team goes to CES every year. There are tons of events every year that most companies will attend to try and get new business. My boss was on 90 flights last year alone to manage new business. He is constantly lugging around his gaming equipment. Sure, not all of them are gamers. I will agree with you on that one. But there are millions of people that travel for business. And travel gets boring over time. There is an untapped market there.


A 6 hour lay over in Atlanta Airport will make anyone want to play a game or do something besides stand there. The guy I sat beside on my flight back was stuck in Atlanta for 10 hours due to bad weather and flight cancellations last Saturday. He was both pissed and bored out of his mind, but he did have a laptop. It's rare to see people traveling not to carry around a tablet, phone, or a laptop. The airport got so full due to flight cancellations. There were no chairs left so everyone was sitting on the floor waiting on their flights lol. And that is not uncommon. It happens. A few hundred thousand people then become a bottleneck in the busiest airport in the world without much to do besides wait. There is money waiting to be had in that scenario.

 

[bug]

You mean people that travel around the world for their companies? A lot more than you think. Our management team goes to CES every year. There are tons of events every year that most companies will attend to try and get new business. My boss was on 90 flights last year alone to manage new business. He is constantly lugging around his gaming equipment. Sure, not all of them are gamers. I will agree with you on that one. But there are millions of people that travel for business. And travel gets boring over time. There is an untapped market there.


A 6 hour lay over in Atlanta Airport will make anyone want to play a game or do something besides stand there. The guy I sat beside on my flight back was stuck in Atlanta for 10 hours due to bad weather and flight cancellations last Saturday. He was both pissed and bored out of his mind, but he did have a laptop. It's rare to see people traveling not to carry around a tablet, phone, or a laptop. The airport got so full due to flight cancellations. There were no chairs left so everyone was sitting on the floor waiting on their flights lol. And that is not uncommon. It happens. A few hundred thousand people then become a bottleneck in the busiest airport in the world without much to do besides wait. There is money waiting to be had in that scenario.

Oh yes, because especially in the US you can totally afford the kind of traffic required to display even FHD @60fps.

 

[TheTechGuy1337]

Oh yes, because especially in the US you can totally afford the kind of traffic required to display even FHD @60fps.

A 720p to 1080p stream does not require much. The Altanta airport has multiple gigabit internet running load balancing through their network. If everyone in the building was streaming a game. It would put a huge load on the network, but not everyone will be. Plus, people using their own hotspots. There are cell towers beside every major airport because cell phone companies want people to have service at all times. Data speeds are top notch there. I do see your point though. The US does not have the network infrastructure that some third world countries are already at. It would need to be upgraded in the long run to sustain a world population being able to do such a thing. But if we aren't willing to try then what is the point of innovation? People laughed at NASA for saying they were going to put a man on the moon and now we have rovers on mars. It takes vision to make things happen and with vision comes failure and with failure comes growth followed by change.