Cognition Dissemination: Will Google’s Stadia Connect?

Google’s Stadia streaming service is less than a couple of months away from release, but there are still concerns about how it will work. The biggest of them involves how reliable it will be in parts of the United States (especially rural America), and other parts of the world where Wi-Fi service is subpar. It hasn’t helped that Google has been downplaying expectations for the service since the last Stadia Direct Connect just before E3 2019, confirming that it won’t be the Netflix of video games and how its software won’t be much cheaper than offerings on other platforms without the chance for actual ownership.

This newest Connect was a good opportunity to convince anyone intrigued that it’s worth taking the risk to subscribe for the software involved before it aired. But the final result will be unlikely to convince anyone who wasn’t already on board.

It’s encouraging for the future lineup that Google has made deals with several third-party developers to bring several good AAA games to the platform. Games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, Destiny 2 and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands were announced during previous Stadia presentations. Several newly-announced AAA games were shown during this one, including Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs Legion, and Borderlands 3. Anyone who buys in to Stadia early will have plenty of games to play, if they won’t rather play them on other platforms. That could go double for Cyberpunk 2077, given the hint that it won’t release on Stadia at the same time as other platforms.

The system will also have its fair share of indie games and smaller titles. Darksiders Genesis, a hack and slash spinoff of the main Zelda-like games, will come to the platform, as will the reboot of Destroy All Monsters. The same goes for Superhot and standalone expansion Superhot: Mind Control Delete. (The former was also confirmed for a quick release on Switch during Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase this morning.) Koei Tecmo is also bringing Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle, which released on other platforms over a month ago.

The online games will provide the largest test of Stadia’s latency. Games like Mortal Kombat 11 and Samurai Shodown, two fighting games previously announced for the platform but were showcased here, will need good online stability to work well thanks to being twitch and reflex-based titles. That’s already a problem for Shodown on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which struggles online with players thanks to netplay SNK clearly only tested in Japan. The demand for good latency will also apply to Windjammers 2, a title announced for the platform on this Connect. The Elder Scrolls Online will be a different kind of online game, similar to Destiny 2 above. But both will need good internet connections to work well nonetheless.

Exclusive titles attract the most attention for systems that need it, though Stadia will start with a dreadfully low number of them, even for a platform in its infancy. Horror adventure game Gylt and house-packing game Get Packed were previously announced, while Orcs Must Die 3 was confirmed as a platform exclusive today. These aren’t enough titles to convince anyone to invest in the system for exclusives out the gate, but it’s too early to write off Google’s overall first-party efforts.

This newest Stadia Connect was all about the games, so it didn’t provide specifics about how connections will work outside of advertising how certain games can run at 4K and 60fps in the right conditions. It’s possible they wanted to leave the technical details out of this kind of presentation, to save it for either press releases or another stream closer to its November release. It wasn’t encouraging that the framerate for the YouTube stream had serious framerate issues, especially given how this is the third presentation in a row to have the issue.

There were very few new announcements in this Stadia Connect, with the focuses being on showing trailers for games already confirmed for the platform and, even weirder, trailers already posted online before the stream. I’m not sure why Google aired this with so few new reveals, since these announcements could have been made directly to their audience online. With the stream closing on the fairly lengthy Borderlands 3 trailer and a farewell greeting, it felt like a final presentation was pulled at the last minute.

There are still several questions surrounding Stadia mere months before the release. The games themselves will be a tough sell with prices being close to what they are on other platforms, if they aren’t identical. This will prompt questions of ownership. You’ll lose the ability to play anything if your subscription lapses, but worse, there’s the potential for something to happen to the service down the line. Not to mention the possibility of individual games being delisted by publishers.

Google should answer some of these before the Stadia launches in November. The Founder’s Edition starter kit will cost $130, and include the Chromecast Ultra, the limited-edition blue controller, and a three-month subscription to the service. Alternatively, the normal subscription will cost $9.99 a month, and offer occasional free games. A free subscription option will also be available sometime next year, though won’t include the free games. Let’s see if they have one more of these Connects planned before the November release.