Last year Google teased us with a demo of Assassins Creed Odyssey played in 1080p in 60fpts via Chrome. The challenging thing about steaming games, no downloads, is lag and latency. If you tap right in a game you need your character to go right instantly.
Google’s announcement today at GDC suggests they’ve solved this. When Stadia launches it’ll support 4K at 60fps, with surround sound and they are working on 8K at 120fps support already.
In Stadia, you don’t need a powerful machine, you just need Chrome and that means Google’s new gaming system will be immediately available on desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and even connected TVs. Google has said it’ll be cross-platform you will be able to play with non-Stadia users.
The giant company is getting into hardware too. You won’t need one to use Stadia but there will be a controller. The controller connects directly to Google’s servers through your wifi and not to your machine.
id Software’s Doom Eternal will be on the first games available on it.
Google, of course, has YouTube in its corner. Stadia will integrate with the video giant and that you’ll be able to leap into a game, without downloading anything, just by clicking “Play Now” on a game video you’re watching. It takes five seconds.
Phil Harrison, Google’s new Head of Gaming, said;
Hundreds of millions of people watch gaming content on YouTube every single day. Our vision is to bring those worlds closer together,”
Stadia is due out in 2019, this year, in the UK, Europe, Canada and the US. It’ll be available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Sources: Lucas Matney at TechCrunch and Zoe Kleinman and Dave Lee at BBC.
