Mirificus posted:

VideoGames posted:

I think he has forgotten that that is a DS4 and not a stadia controller.

Mirificus posted:

quote:

In early April, we announced that anyone who signs up for Stadia within 14 countries will receive two free months of Stadia Pro. On June 3rd, we will be changing our current Stadia Pro offer from two free months to one free month for new users. Anyone who signs up for Stadia on or after June 3rd will receive one free month of Stadia Pro. So if you haven’t already signed up, head over to Stadia.com prior to June 3rd to claim your two free months!

leftist heap posted:

lol

Mirificus posted:

...! posted:

lol

Stadia has made gaming hardware irrelevant and obsolete and the luddites are mad about it posted:

Lots of theories have been thrown around as to the hate Stadia has gotten since it's first official announcement months ago.

A good chunk of it is Google's fault because they have a culture that is unfortunately driven by hype. Which inevitably leads to unfulfilled promises. Which then leads to disappointment.

However, let's put aside Google's self-inflicted injury for a moment and address the elephant in the room.

This is controversial, but I have zero excitement for the PS5 or Xbox Scarlett. Both consoles are dead on arrival as far as I'm concerned. My lack of enthusiasm for these products squarely rests on Stadia. Let me explain why.

I've clocked over 60 hours of playing Stadia on the various screens around me. I've played Assassin's Creed on Stadia on my 4K TV, Linux workstation, MacBook, Chromebook, and phone. I played on whatever screen was available to me when the urge to game hit me. I played when it was convenient and when I wanted.

I didn't have to download anything, update anything, patch anything, troubleshoot anything, make storage space for anything, or manage anything. I just opened a web browser or launched the Stadia app, plugged in my controller and started playing. I've played at the office, bathroom, bedroom, living room, and even at a friend's house. My gaming rig is with me everywhere and anywhere there's good internet service.

How can you experience that and ever want to go back to the limitations of console and PC gaming? So for me, any gaming platform that doesn't recreate this experience is DOA. Hence, my lack of enthusiasm for the next generation consoles and graphics cards.

Stadia is the forbidden fruit of the gaming world. Once you've eaten it and gained the knowledge, there's no going back. And this what the luddites, gatekeepers, and toxic elements within the gaming culture fear. There's a tectonic shift in the gaming horizon and Stadia is rewriting the rules on what it means to be a gamer and setting new expectations for what a gaming platform should look like.

Unfortunately, classism has always existed in gaming culture. PC gamers look down on console gamers. Console gamers look down on mobile gamers. Hardcore gamers look down on casual gamers. Gamers who build their rig look down on those who bought theirs. And so on.

Stadia, in one fell swoop, eliminates this nonsense. It has, or will when it's fully realized, make the luxury of gaming accessible to peasants.

Stadia has completely shattered the barrier to entry for gaming. And let's be real about it, the toxic elements in the gaming stratosphere and the pseudo-gatekeepers are mad.

Stadia blurs the lines between PC, console, and mobile gaming. Hardware is irrelevant because Stadia just needs a browser to run. And regardless of hardware specs, the platform runs AAA games like a hot knife through butter. So there's nothing to be classist or elitists about. Everybody has access to the same gaming hardware, Google's data centers.

Steve just spent $500 on a console to play Destiny 2. Danny just spent $2000 building a gaming PC to play Red Dead.

Jane spent $140 and some change on Stadia. Yet, she can play both games in high fidelity on more devices and more places than Steve and Danny.

Oh, and next year, for around $60 her sister will be able to play Cyberpunk 2077 on her 3-year-old budget Dell laptop, that she got on sale.

You can see how Steve and Danny might harbor resentment towards Jane. It's the unfortunate bug in human nature. When you spend so much on hardware and out of nowhere here comes a new way of thinking that makes all your investments look dated, obsolete, or irrelevant. Let's be honest, that's got to sting.

This is where all the hate is coming from. It's coming from fear. Fear that change is coming and those who've invested a lot in the old way of gaming might be left in the past. This is why it feels like some people actively want Stadia to fail. There are even YouTubers that have confessed openly that they want Stadia to fail.

Remember when Stadia first launched, the criticism was that it wouldn't work. The argument was that unless Google had figured out how to break the laws of physics Stadia was nothing more than vaporware emanating from pipe dreams.

Well, the doubters were proven wrong. So the goal post shifted. The criticism became input latency. There's no way, I tell you, there's no way input latency wouldn't ruin the gaming experience. Unless Google practice black magic, games would play like poo poo on Stadia, the haters opined. They were all convinced FPS and fighting games wouldn't work on Stadia.

Then Digital Foundry carried out tests that Stadia's latency was similar or better than your typical console. Also, initially skeptical game developers started putting to rest that input latency was an issue. Then people from all works of life were allowed to test Stadia and once again input latency wasn't an issue.

Well, once the input latency theory was resoundingly debunked, the goal post had to shift again.

This time it was games. Stadia didn't have enough games at launch. Or the games were already available on other platforms. Or the games were old. Or there are no exclusives. Meanwhile, evidence shows that Stadia launched with just as many titles as other platform launches in recent history.

The goal post of criticism will keep shifting. It doesn't matter how good Stadia is. Those who have invested so much in the alternative gaming platforms are threatened by the revolutionary shift Stadia is bringing to gaming. So they're going to continue to look for everything wrong about Stadia, and nitpick it to death. Until they realize, begrudgingly, that Stadia and what it represents is undeniably the future of gaming.

If the vision of Stadia pans out, 10 years from now, gaming will no longer be the expensive hobby of a few. Your hardware won't matter. Your operating system won't matter. The form-factor of your preferred computing device won't matter. Your technical aptitude with computers won't matter.

The only thing that would matter is whether or not you have a reliable Internet connection.

The luddites be hatin'. They're hating because Stadia will make high-quality gaming accessible to anyone on any screen with reliable internet service on any computing device. I say let them hate. They're on the wrong side of history. They'll come around when their favorite gaming platform follows in Stadia's footsteps.

People cared about DVD and CD players until Netflix and Spotify happened. Now we can watch movies and listen to music on any screens or computing devices in our lives. DVD and CD players exist, but they're irrelevant and obsolete.

quote:

Really, because the presentations from the next-gen console platform makers hasn't exactly impressed anyone. In these trying times, when you put Stadia against any of the competition, it comes out on top.

quote:

Just like the next-gen consoles, those games don't bring anything new to the table. Valhalla is coming to Stadia, so at least I'd be able to play it on any device and screen that I own. That's the bare minimum to get me excited about any game or gaming console these days. Otherwise, it's the same old rehashed nonsense. Convince me on why I should spend $600 on an ugly box to play any of these games. If a game isn't coming to Stadia, it's stuck in the past as far as I'm concerned. Console gaming is obsolete to me. It's like trying to get me excited about DVD players. It ain't happening.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

What do you want to bet that that "very common name" was only common in Germany right up around until the mid-1940's and the letter was still an H?

Stadia provides some sanity and an outlet during this crazy time posted:

I'm new to reddit but I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on Stadia. I thought I'd share why Stadia is such a boon to my life at the moment.

I got the founder's edition back in November but my family was relocating across the country during the winter, so I really only started using it when Doom Eternal dropped. I've been a lifelong gamer and have owned most systems through the early 00s but generally defaulted to Xbox given how near and dear the Halo series is to my heart (and offset thumbsticks). However, the last 8 years involved grad school, a wedding, and the birth of two children, so I just didn't really have time to sit down and enjoy a game without guilt. Indeed, when I did have 20 min, I found myself wasting a decent chunk of that loading up my original Xbox One and waiting for updates or long load screens, which just punished any attempts to fit in gaming.

But right now in the pandemic, it's been over two months of being at home with my 2 and 1 year olds while my wife and I have no family nearby to help and we are both expected to work 40 hours and see patients. Recently, I felt as if I was in a dark depression without any semblance of reprieve or a break. I started allowing myself to not feel guilty to play a video game for 5 or 10 minutes at a time when the kids were playing appropriately or I had brief breaks in my appointments. Being able to load up fantastic games instantly on my laptop or phone and jump in for minutes at a time has really helped to relieve stress and recharge my spirits when, as a dad, you rarely get a minute of "me" time. I love my family so much but that me time is so refreshing.

I love the controller, its fit is just fantastic, and it almost has me sold on aligned thumbsticks. The game library is certainly a work in progress but, having not played games for several years, I have been having a hoot playing AC:O (haven't played that series since Revelations) and honestly Stacks on Stacks has been some of the most fun I've had in a game for awhile. I definitely wish I could use my phone untethered and that I could view achievements on the app but otherwise it's been such a great experience.

If anyone has suggestions for games I can play in really short spurts (e.g., 5 to 15 min) definitely let me know. I love being able to knock out a quest in AC:O in that time but some games that I've enjoyed like Zombie Army have checkpoints that are just too distal from one another to adjust to my lifestyle.

I'm still going to get the Xbox Series X and I look forward to it but I never thought I'd see the day when I'm deciding on whether I should buy Cyberpunk on a next gen system that will cost several hundred dollars or a brand-new platform that is basically just an app or a controller!

Mirificus posted:

5 months ago

Mirificus posted:

Mirificus posted:

...! posted:

You might not get 5.1 surround even with Pro. Stadia uses uncompressed PCM for surround, which some receivers don't support. It's a lovely way to do surround (especially when it's being streamed along with a loving game) but I'm guessing it's because Google doesn't want to pay licensing fees to Dolby and/or DTS. Or maybe there's not a fast enough way to compress and stream audio over the internet on the fly?

I've seen quite a few complaints from people on r/stadia from people who paid for Pro solely to be able to play with surround sound, only for Stadia to stream them something unusable. The complaints always receive crickets in response, so I'm guessing those people are out of luck.

quote:

Havent been able to find 1 single online game of doom in almost a week.

Is online gaming on stadia just super rare or lower player bases? I'm gutted as I was really looking forward to battlemode it was one of the things that sold me on doom. It needs cross play added asap.

Stux posted:

ngl it would be great if every streaming service cratered and died

MarcusSA posted:

Why?

Legit asking.

Barudak posted:

Stux is against non-ownership methods of content access, and streaming is a way to prevent the end user from having local access to the data they paid for.

A good poster posted:

I absolutely love digging through my games' files looking at art assets, finding music stored as mp3s or ogg files, installing or even making mods. None of that is even remotely possible with a streaming service, and it would be really horrible if that went away forever.

MarcusSA posted:

With Stadia you are right but with GFN it doesn’t change that.

I’d personally like a streaming service that worked along side my current library that wasn’t getting hosed over by publishers.

Barudak posted:

Stux is against non-ownership methods of content access, and streaming is a way to prevent the end user from having local access to the data they paid for.

limaCAT posted:

Joke's on him from the 80's you pay for a license not for the property of the software.

Real hurthling! posted:

When is xcloud? I want to see racked xb1s' trounce stadia on performance and resolution somehow

Real hurthling! posted:

When is xcloud? I want to see racked xb1s' trounce stadia on performance and resolution somehow

...! posted:

You might not get 5.1 surround even with Pro. Stadia uses uncompressed PCM for surround, which some receivers don't support. It's a lovely way to do surround (especially when it's being streamed along with a loving game) but I'm guessing it's because Google doesn't want to pay licensing fees to Dolby and/or DTS. Or maybe there's not a fast enough way to compress and stream audio over the internet on the fly?

Real hurthling! posted:

I mean the launch

Real hurthling! posted:

Stadia was all an op to make second wave services look good.