Like Tom Brown and many other voices here I’m lukewarm on Google’s Stadia – and any streaming service. Part of this is me being too tied to old-fashioned gaming (I’ve always eschewed even mobile) and the tangible nature of hardware under the TV. But another part of it is that I’m not sure this is really going to catch the public’s imagination.
The most popular gaming system in the last few years has been the Nintendo Switch, especially in Japan. Consoles that allow you to play anywhere, machines that get people gathering round the same TV, intriguing phenomenon like Pokémon GO that get you out of the house. That is, specific hardware and tangibility. The Stadia looks to have already boxed itself into a lack of innovation – doomed to be constantly updated in hardware specs but never to turn any heads.
My opinion is that gaming hardware is moving into on-the-move, flexible, secure experiences. I want to take my machine out on a flight and play straight away. I don’t want to log in, log on, connect or update. I don’t want to worry about the speed of a busy cafe’s shared signal. I know I can take my Wii U and PlayStation 4 halfway across the world to China, where I live (and which has a sovereign internet where lots of stuff outside the country is blocked and trying to access anything in the country from outside is very slow) and definitely play the games I have stored on my machine.
This leads me to the second reason I don’t think it’ll take off quite yet, which is much more pertinent: internet speeds. I don’t know about anyone else back in the UK but my YouTube still sometimes pauses when loading a 480p video, my Wi-Fi signal is weak downstairs and the UK’s 4G mobile signal all but disappears in my low-lying Kent village. And we saw how petrified the core fanbase was when Xbox One was announced to require an always-on connection, and I don’t think network reliability or stability has improved much since then.
I’m sure that Google are looking at the long-term scenario but I don’t think it’s as close as they like to think. I’m amazed and highly impressed that they can boast about 8K 120fps gaming on the horizon…. But also, please tell me how they’re confident enough in their servers that, upon the launch of a huge new title, they can handle millions of users at once. Does that mean their machines have to render a million GTA VI games at once?
That query is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the reservations I outlined above. So enough said really. Streaming certainly doesn’t feel like it’s going to be for me.
Owen Pile (NongWen – PSN ID)
