google stadia
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Android 12 will let you play games before they finish downloading
At its Game Developer Summit, Google today announced a new feature for Android game developers that will speed up by almost 2x the time from starting a download in the Google Play store to the game launching — at least on Android 12 devices. The name of the new feature, “play as you download,” pretty much gives away what this is all about. Even before all the game’s assets have been downloaded, players will be able to get going.
On average, modern games are likely the largest apps you’ll ever download, and when that download takes a couple of minutes, you may have long moved on to the next TikTok session before the game is ever ready to play. With this new feature, Google promises that it’ll take only half the time to jump into a game that weighs in at 400MB or so. If you’re a console gamer, this whole concept will also feel familiar, given that Sony pretty much does the same thing for PlayStation games.
Now, this isn’t Google’s first attempt at making games load faster. With “Google Play Instant,” the company already offers a related feature that allows gamers to immediately start a game from the Play Store. The idea there, though, is to completely do away with the install process and give potential players an opportunity to try out a new game right away.
Like Play Instant, the new “play as you download” feature is powered by Google’s Android App Bundle format, which is, for the most part, replacing the old APK standard
Image Credits: Google
Powered by WPeMatico
Facebook buys studio behind Roblox-like Crayta gaming platform
Facebook has been making plenty of one-off virtual reality studio acquisitions lately, but today the company announced that they’re buying something with wider ambitions — a Roblox-like game creation platform.
Facebook shared that they’re buying Unit 2 Games, which builds a platform called Crayta. Like some other platforms out there, it builds on top of the Unreal Engine and gives users a more simple creation interface teamed with discovery and community features. Crayta has cornered its own niche pushing monetization paths like Battle Pass seasons, giving the platform a more Fortnite-like vibe as well.
Unit 2 has been around for just over three years, and Crayta launched just last July. Its audience has likely been limited by the studio’s deal to exclusively launch on Google’s cloud-streaming platform Stadia, though it’s also available on the Epic Games Store as of March.
The title feels designed for the lightweight nature of cloud-gaming platforms, with users able to share access to games just by linking other users, and Facebook seems keen to use Crayta to push forward their own efforts in the gaming sphere.
“Crayta has maximized current cloud-streaming technology to make game creation more accessible and easy to use. We plan to integrate Crayta’s creation toolset into Facebook Gaming’s cloud platform to instantly deliver new experiences on Facebook,” Facebook Gaming VP Vivek Sharma wrote in an announcement post.
The entire team will be coming on as part of the acquisition, though financial terms of the deal weren’t shared.
Powered by WPeMatico
Google shuts down its internal Stadia game studios
When Google originally announced Stadia, its cloud gaming service, the company also announced a first-party game studio. Stadia Games and Entertainment was supposed to release exclusive titles for the new platform. And yet, Google has changed its mind and is now shutting down its internal game studios.
“Given our focus on building on the proven technology of Stadia as well as deepening our business partnerships, we’ve decided that we will not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E, beyond any near-term planned games,” Google Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison wrote in a blog post.
That’s right, the company has yet to release a single game under the Stadia brand but it’s already over. This is an odd move as Google has made some significant investments in the space. It originally created a studio in Montreal Canada and acquired Typhoon Studios. It then opened another studio in Los Angeles.
Jade Raymond was leading Google’s first-party studios. She has been working in the video game industry for more than 15 years. In particular, she was a producer for Ubisoft in Montreal working on the first Assassin’s Creed games. She also worked for Electronic Arts on an unreleased single-player Star Wars video game.
Today’s news also means that Raymond is leaving Google. Other Google employees working for Stadia Games and Entertainment will move on to new roles.
Going forward, Stadia will focus on third-party games. The company says that Cyberpunk 2077 has been quite popular on the cloud gaming platform for instance. It lets you launch the game on a server in a data center near you and stream the video feed to your device.
Many readers will likely think that Google might shut down Stadia soon as the company has shut down many, many services in the past. The company tries to be reassuring.
“We’re committed to the future of cloud gaming, and will continue to do our part to drive this industry forward. Our goal remains focused on creating the best possible platform for gamers and technology for our partners, bringing these experiences to life for people everywhere,” Harrison writes.
But do you believe him?
Powered by WPeMatico
Google Stadia is now available on iOS
A few weeks after announcing that iOS support was on the way, Google’s cloud gaming service now supports the iPhone and iPad. As expected, the company is using a web app to access the service. Google also says that you need to update to iOS 14.3, the latest iOS update that was released earlier this week.
If you want to try it out with a free or paid Stadia account, you can head over to stadia.google.com from your iOS device. Log in to your Google account, add a shortcut to your home screen and open the web app.
After that, you can launch a game and start playing. Most games will require a gamepad, so you might want to pair a gamepad with your iPhone or iPad as well.
Apple’s iOS supports Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers using Bluetooth as well as controllers specifically designed for iOS. You can also play with the Stadia controller, but it’s optional. If you just want to check your inventory quickly, Stadia on iOS also supports touch controls.
Stadia works a bit like a console that runs in the cloud. You have to buy games for the platform specifically and you can then stream them from a data center near you. Recent additions include Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
While you don’t have to pay an additional subscription to play those games, you can optionally become a Stadia Pro subscriber. In addition to games you bought on the platform, it lets you access a library of games and it unlocks 4K video. Stadia Pro costs $9.99 per month.
In other Stadia news, earlier this week, Ubisoft announced that you could subscribe to the company’s unlimited subscription service Ubisoft+ and access games from Stadia. For now, it’s only available as a beta in the U.S.
Powered by WPeMatico
Google Stadia and GeForce Now are both coming to iOS as web apps
Google and Nvidia both had some news about their respective cloud gaming service today. Let’s start with Nvidia. GeForce Now is now available on the iPhone and the iPad as a web app. The company says it’s a beta for now, but you can start using it by heading over to play.geforcenow.com on your iOS device.
GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service that works with your own game library. You can connect to your Steam, Epic and Ubisoft Connect accounts and play games you’ve already purchased on those third-party platforms — GOG support is coming soon. GeForce Now is also available on macOS, Android and Windows.
Game publishers have to opt in to appear on GeForce Now, which means that you won’t find your entire Steam library on the service. Still, the list is already quite long.
Right now, it costs $5 per month to access the Founders edition, which lets you play whenever you want and for as long as you want. It’s an introductory price, which means that Nvidia could raise prices in the future.
You can also try the service with a free account. You’re limited to one-hour sessions and less powerful hardware. There are also few slots. For instance, you have to wait 11 minutes to launch a game with a free account right now.
Once you add the web app to your iOS home screen, you can launch the service in full screen without the interface of Safari. You can connect a Bluetooth controller. Unfortunately, you can’t use a keyboard and a mouse.
The company says it is actively working with Epic Games on a touch-friendly version of Fortnite so that iOS players can play the game again. It could definitely boost usage on the service.
As for Google, the company issued an update 12 months after the launch of Stadia. Unlike GeForce Now, Stadia works more like a console. You have to buy games for the platform specifically. There are a hundred games on the platform including some games that you get with an optional Stadia Pro subscription.
The company says that iOS testing should start in the coming weeks. “This will be the first phase of our iOS progressive web application. As we test performance and add more features, your feedback will help us improve the Stadia experience for everyone. You can expect this feature to begin rolling out several weeks from now,” the company wrote.
Powered by WPeMatico
Google Stadia is now free for everyone, with a two-month trial for Pro tier
Google’s game-streaming service Stadia is now free for anyone with a Gmail account, the company announced today. Assuming you’ve got a compatible device and controller — and good internet in one of the 14 supported countries — you can sign up right now and get the “Pro” edition with a handful of built-in games for two months.
Until today, Stadia was only available via a $129 “Premiere Edition” that came with a controller, though a free “Base” version has been long promised. In a blog post, the company explained that the intense pressures of the pandemic led them to finally open up the service.
“We’re facing some of the most challenging times in recent memory. Video games can be a valuable way to socialize with friends and family when you’re stuck at home, so we’re giving gamers in 14 countries free access to Stadia for two months,” writes Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison.
Although the post makes no mention of a permanent free Base tier, a Google representative confirmed that it exists and players signing up today will be able to switch to it if they decide not to pay for Pro after two months. It’s limited to 1080p, 60 frames per second, and stereo (versus surround) sound.
Existing subscribers, who have been vocally critical of the bare-bones nature of the service they paid a premium to access, will not be charged for the next two months. Also, in order to cope with what will no doubt be a flood of demand, Stadia will be defaulting everyone’s streams to 1080p, though you’ll be able to change that in your preferences. That’s interesting, considering YouTube just downgraded its quality worldwide to lower overall bandwidth usage.
For now, though, it won’t do to look a gift horse in the mouth. Stadia is a solid way to play games on a PC, or TV or device that would normally not be able to do so — an underpowered laptop, for instance. Streaming to your phone or tablet is also an option.
On supported Android devices you’ll need to download the app; on computers, you’ll need Chrome; and for a TV you need a Chromecast Ultra — the regular one won’t cut it. You can’t play games on iOS yet, unfortunately.
You have to provide your own controller if you’re not using a keyboard and mouse; a list of compatible ones (and phones) is available here, and while Google’s own Stadia controller is the only one that works with Chromecast, the controllers for the other major consoles generally work for Chrome and Android phones.
As for games, well, that part’s a bit confusing. You’ll be getting access to the Stadia Pro tier of membership, which gets at least free game every month to keep, like Xbox Games with Gold and PlayStation Plus. Right now, though, that only amounts to nine titles, though some are pretty great — Destiny 2, SteamWorld Dig 2, GRID and a few more.
On either a Pro or free account, if you want to play other games like Borderlands 3 or Rise of the Tomb Raider, you’ll have to buy them on the Stadia marketplace. The games are then only available to stream through Stadia, not to run natively on your PC, so if you ever left the service you would lose access to them (a “license not buy” situation common on digital platforms, but especially pronounced on streaming ones). There are 38 games available to buy total, and yes, that number is pretty low. Google is “tracking” 120 more to arrive this year, but the lack of games has been a serious issue for existing subscribers.
So far Stadia has yet to prove itself a worthwhile investment for gamers, though for some obviously it’s a dream come true. SensorTower put downloads of the app at about 750,000, which is nothing to sniff at — but it’s far from the number of installations of popular games services like Steam.
That said, free trial will help potential subscribers decide if the service is for them, with zero risk. You can sign up for your free trial via the main Stadia site here; the company has said it is in the middle of rolling out the feature, so check back if it isn’t there yet.
And here are the countries in which it is currently available:
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Spain
- Netherlands
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Norway
- Finland
Powered by WPeMatico
Destiny 2 goes free to play and gains cross-saving on all platforms
Bungie aims to fortify the popular but flagging Destiny 2 with an expanded free-to-play plan and universal cross-platform saving, the company announced today. It’s an interesting and player-friendly evolution of the “games as a service” model, and other companies should take note.
The base game, which is to say the original campaign and the first year of updates, will be available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Google Stadia. You can play as much as you want, and your progress will be synced to your account, so you can do some easy patrols on console and then switch to your PC’s mouse and keyboard for the more difficult raids.
The PS4 cross-save ability is a surprise, since Sony has resisted this sort of thing in the past and rumors had it before the announcement that they would be left out of the bargain. It’s heartening to see this level of cooperation, if that’s what it is, in the new gaming economy.
Confirmed! https://t.co/WKWtPZ7mtD
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 6, 2019
As part of Bungie’s separation from Activision, which published Destiny 2 to begin with, the game is now switching over to Steam on the PC. That’s probably a good thing for most, and you won’t lose any progress. It’s also being renamed “Destiny: New Light,” because why not?
Importantly, no platform will have any content advantage over another — no Xbox-specific guns or PC-specific levels. At a time when consoles are fighting one another on the basis of exclusives, this is a breath of fresh air.
The news was announced in a stream this morning, though players got a sneak peak when a publication I shall not name posted it slightly early. But we also learned more ahead of Bungie’s announcement when Google’s Stadia event showed the game coming to the streaming service in free form.
The developers at Bungie reveal Destiny 2: Shadowkeep.
A new chapter for Destiny 2 and the studio begins this September.
Watch the full ViDoc: https://t.co/A1dBgdxgMQ pic.twitter.com/nHbAW9CuYA
— Bungie (@Bungie) June 6, 2019
Destiny 2 came out two years ago and has had a number of expansions — and has also been free for limited times or platforms a handful of times. The base game was really a bit threadbare and honestly may not convince new players that it’s worth it to pay. But the price is right and if you like the basic gameplay the expansions, which improved considerably on the game and added a lot of contents, can be bought year by year.
The move is obviously meant to help Destiny 2 compete with other games-as-services, such as the constantly improving Warframe and youth-devouring Fortnite. And it’s a good test bed for the new cross-platform economy that gamers are beginning to demand. You’ll be able to test it out for yourself on September 17, when the switchover is set to take effect — more details should be available well ahead of the relaunch.
Powered by WPeMatico
Here’s how Google Stadia performs depending on your internet connection
Google is introducing more about the launch of its Stadia streaming gaming service today, and VP Phil Harrison gave us performance specifics today so you can see exactly how the company thinks the service will perform based on what kind of internet connection you have. It tops out at an impressive 4K resolution, with HDR color, 60fps frame rate and 5.1 surround sound, but you’ll have to have at least a 35 Mbps connection to get that level of quality.
Meanwhile, at 20 Mbps you’ll get full HD 1080p output, while retaining HDR video, 60fps and 5.1 surround. And Google has optimized for smoothness of stream by retaining 60 fps all the way down to its recommended minimum bandwidth connection quality of 10 Mbps (and even potentially below that based on this chart). You’ll only get 720p streams at that level, however, and stereo instead of surround sound.
“With Stadia, our goal is to make gaming more accessible for everyone,” is how Harrison framed it, and that applies to its range of connection support as well as its device availability. At launch you’ll be able to play Stadia games on your TV (via Chromecast Ultra), desktop, laptop and tablet (via browsers) and on smartphones, though only Pixel phones to begin with starting with Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a (via dedicated Stadia app).
Powered by WPeMatico
Rivals in gaming, Microsoft and Sony team up on cloud services
For the last two decades, Sony and Microsoft’s gaming divisions have been locked in all-out war against one another: on price, on hardware, on franchises, on exclusives… you name it. But it seems they’ve set their enmity aside temporarily that they might better prevent that filthy casual, Google, from joining the fray.
The official team-up, documented in a memorandum of understanding, was announced today, though details are few. But this is clear enough:
The two companies will explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services. In addition, the two companies will explore the use of current Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for Sony’s game and content-streaming services.
Of course there is no doubt that Sony could have gone with a number of other cloud services for its gaming-on-demand services. It already runs one, PlayStation Now, but the market is expected to expand over the next few years much like cord cutters have driven traditional TV and movie watchers to Netflix and other streaming services. Expansion would surely prove expensive and complicated.
The most salient challenger is likely Google and its new Stadia game streaming service, which of course has a huge advantage in its global presence, brand recognition and unique entry points: search and YouTube. The possibility of searching for a game and being able to play it literally five seconds later is an amazing one, and really only something Google can pull off right now.
That makes Google a threat. And Microsoft and Sony have enough threats already, what with the two of them making every exclusive and chip partnership count, the resurgence of Nintendo with the immensely popular Switch and the complex new PC-and-mobile-focused gaming market making consoles look outdated. Apple Arcade exists, too, but I don’t know that anyone is worried about it, exactly.
Perhaps there was a call made on the special direct line each has to the other, where they just said “truce… until we reduce Google Stadia to rubble and salt the earth. Also Nvidia maybe.”
We don’t actually have to imagine, though. As Sony President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida noted in the announcement: “For many years, Microsoft has been a key business partner for us, though of course the two companies have also been competing in some areas. I believe that our joint development of future cloud solutions will contribute greatly to the advancement of interactive content.”
Sony doesn’t lack technical chops, or the software necessary to pull off a streaming service — but it may simply make more sense to deploy via Microsoft’s Azure than bring its own distribution systems up to par. No doubt Microsoft is happy to welcome a customer as large as Sony to its stable, and any awkwardness from the two competing elsewhere is secondary to that. Google is a more existential competitor in many ways, so it makes sense that Microsoft would favor partnering with a partial rival against it.
Sony has long been in this boat itself. Its image sensors and camera technology can be found in phones and DSLRs that compete with its own products — but the revenue and feedback it has built up as a result have let it maintain its dominance.
Speaking of which, the two companies also plan to collaborate on imaging, combining Sony’s sensor tech with Microsoft’s AI work. This is bound to find its way to applications in robotics and autonomous vehicles, though competition is fierce there, and neither company has a real branded presence. Perhaps they aim to change that… together.
Powered by WPeMatico
What latency feels like on Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform
After peppering Google employees with questions regarding Stadia’s latency, pricing and supported devices, to mostly no avail, I got my hands on one of their new controllers and pressed play on the Doom 2016 gameplay they were showing off on a big-screen TV.
Things started off pretty ugly. The frame rate dropped to a fast-paced PowerPoint presentation, the resolution dipped between 4K crispness and indecipherable blurriness and latency seemed to be as much as a half-second. As the Google employees looked nervously at each other, someone grabbed the controller from me and restarted the system.
After a system restart, things moved along much, much more smoothly. But what the situation sums up is that when it comes to game streaming, things can be unpredictable. To give Google credit, they stress-tested their system by running Stadia on hotel Wi-Fi rather than taking me down to Mountain View and letting me play with Stadia under much more controlled conditions.
Stadia is Google’s cloud game-streaming service and, while there’s a lot we don’t know, the basic tenants are clear. It moves console-level gaming online into your Chrome browser and lets you access it from devices like smartphones that wouldn’t be able to handle the GPU-load initially.
Despite the initial hiccup, my experience with Stadia was largely positive. Doom 2016 was in crisp 4K and I was able to focus on the game without thinking about the service I was playing it on, which is ultimately the best endorsement of a new platform like this.
This will likely be a great service for more casual gamers, but might not be the best fit for the most hardcore users playing multi-player titles. While you may be launching this service directly from YouTube feeds of esports gamers, this is something they probably wouldn’t use. That’s because the latency between input and something being displayed onscreen isn’t imperceptible, though it’s probably good enough for the vast majority of users (myself included), which is still a worthy prize for the company’s efforts to take on the massive gaming market.
Google Stadia VP Phil Harrison wouldn’t give me a proper range of where exactly latency fell, but he did say it was less than the time it took for a human to perceive something and react — which another Google employee then told me differed person-to-person, but was generally 70ms-130ms — so I suppose the most official number we’ll get is that the latency is probably somewhere less than 70ms.
There is no hard truth here, though, because latency will really depend on your geographic proximity to the data center. Being in San Francisco, I connected to a data center roughly 50 miles away in San Jose. Google confirmed to me that not all rural users in supported countries will be able to signup for the service at launch because of this.
Other interesting things to note:
- Google said they’d confirm devices later, but when asked about iOS support at launch they highlighted that they were focused on Pixel devices at launch.
- It doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to restore purchases of games you’ve previously gotten; you’ll unsurprisingly have to buy all of your Stadia titles on the platform.
- You’ll be able to access games from YouTube streams, but there will also be an online hub for all your content and you can access games via links.
- The controller was nice and probably felt most similar to the design of Sony’s DualShock controller.
We’ll probably be hearing a lot more at Google I/O this summer, but with my first hands-on demo, the service certainly works and it certainly feels console-quality. The big freaking question is how Google prices this, because that pricing is going to determine whether it’s a service for casual gamers or hardcore gamers, and that will determine whether it’s a success.
Update: We were playing a level from Doom 2016, not Doom Eternal
Powered by WPeMatico