Every now and then, new inventions and discoveries are happening all over the globe. Just like that, Google introduced first of its kind, cloud gaming service (just like Netflix, but for video games) called Google Stadia. If you don't know about Google Stadia, here's a quick rundown: Stadia is a cloud service subscription for video games that requires no additional hardware for you enjoy your favorite game.
Today, we'll be discussing the top five things that we love about Google Stadia and the five more things that we hate about it and needs to get a fix soon.
10 Things We Love: Stadia Runs On Nearly Any Screen
The best thing about Stadia is that it can be operated on almost any screen, And yes, even on your television. When they first announced this feature, it sounded too good to be true, but it turned out to be exactly what they mentioned in the reveal stream. Although Google Stadia has a vast variety of devices it can run on, there are still some limitations to it. Like, as of now, you can only play on Google Pixel devices if you want to try out Stadia service on mobile phones.
9 Things We Love: AAA Games
Google is really pushing hard when it comes to Stadia's game library. We have to admit, there aren't many titles you can play on the platform right now that you already haven't tried on other platforms (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC).
Right now, the best AAA titles you can try on Google Stadia are Destiny 2: The Collection, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat 11, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider along with some others. But if we talk about the future, there will be a lot of new AAA games coming to this cloud gaming service including the most anticipated title - Cyberpunk 2077.
8 Things We Love: New Controller
As we said, Stadia don't require you to purchase any hardware for it. But if you are a console player and love to sit back on your couch and enjoy playing video games with a controller, Google Stadia offers its own official controller.
Some bonus features come with this controller. First, Stadia's controller connects via Wifi to your cloud server which minimizes the input lag. It also features a Share button that allows you to share your gameplay directly on YouTube.
7 Things We Love: Social Perks
While video gaming is on one side, Google Stadia also features some cool social features. There are hundreds of thousands of players who love to watch their favorite professional streamer or YouTuber. This allows streamers and broadcaster to get engaged with their audiences even more freely.
Viewers can even get in a queue to play the game with their favorite broadcaster. On top of that, State Share allows you to let your friends try out the game where you left off with one simple link. That's how easy it is.
6 Things We Love: Exclusive Titles
If we take a look at the games released with Google Stadia, it sounds like Google has plenty of partners lined up to release Stadia exclusive titles. But let's face it, Stadia don't have any competition for Sony's PlayStation (like God of War, The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn), Microsoft Xbox (Halo, Gears of War), and Nintendo (Luigi’s Mansion 3, Super Mario Odyssey, and Yoshi’s Crafted World).
Stadia Games and Entertainment is headed by Jade Raymond who previously worked at Ubisoft and EA. The only Stadia exclusive title we have right now is Gylt, which is a horror game where players set out to find their missing friend Emily.
5 Things We Hate: Input Lag
After trying out Google Stadia personally, it seems many issues need to be fixed sooner rather than later. One of the main issues we've noticed is Input Lag/delay (whatever you want to call it). If you don't know what it is, input lag is the delay between your action and the signal that is sent to the monitor/screen.
This really ruins your experience when playing a video game. And unfortunately, Google Stadia has this issue and not in just one game.
4 Things We Hate: High-Speed Internet
The most important thing that you want to consider if you want to buy Google Stadia is, do you have a high-speed internet connection? As we know, Google Stadia stream video games from their data centers.
So for that, you would need a pretty fast internet connection and sadly, now everyone has that. According to the Google Stadia website, you need to have 35Mbps of internet connection if you want to play games on 4k at 60 FPS with 5.1 surround sound.
3 Things We Hate: Screen Stutter and Sync Issues
Since the release of Google Stadia, there have many numerous complains about how players are getting frame rate issues even though their internet connections are above 50Mbps. On top of that, many reviews showed off how the game just stutters while running.
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If you've ever experienced stuttering in a video game, you would know how this makes your experience 100 times worse. According to Forbes, there have been many instances where the author experienced massive FPS drops and screen stuttering issues.
2 Things We Hate: Playable Only On Pixel Devices
You may have been wondering, why can't I try Google Stadia on my Android device? Well, this is because the Google Stadia service is only available on Google Pixel devices as of now. So, there's no way to play the games using Stadia's cloud gaming service on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or iPhone 11 Max Pro.
At this point, we don't have any official news on when Google will release this service on other devices.
1 Things We Hate: Content Accessibility
While you may like the digital-only video games, there are definitely those who prefer physical discs instead of downloading digital games. Talking about digital games, Stadia completely runs on digital-only video games meaning you can't buy any physical discs for this service. What if Google Stadia just shuts down all of a sudden? This is a question that has been brought up in many reviews.
Well, if Google decides to shut the Stadia service, this means that all of the games that you've paid for will just... disappear. You won't be able to access them anymore unlike consoles where you can still play the games. That's not the case with Google Stadia. Let us know what you think about this in the comments!