10 Things You Didn t Know About Google Stadia In 2020

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10 Things You Didn t Know About Google Stadia In 2020

Google Stadia has been a bit of a disappointment, but how much do you know about the streaming service? While seemed promising, offering gamers a Netflix-type streaming service, but for video games -- the console has proven to have more than its fair share of kinks. It's hard to find fun from a console that lags through your favorite games or features a marketplace that sells for their full price. It's been a failure up until now and there aren't really any redeeming factors other than the awesome ideas that Google presented. So while the ideal version of streaming is likely still a ways off, let's break down 10 important aspects of . THEGAMER VIDEO OF THE DAY

A Free Version Is On The Way

No, this doesn't mean that Stadia itself will be free anytime soon, but instead, Google will offer a free membership option. In case you didn't know, in addition to the $129 dollar price of the console you also have to pay $10 dollars each month to continue to play your stadia. Sure, streaming is an expensive business especially when you think of all those servers Google has running to keep the service as smooth as possible. But a free version will likely be the antidote that Google needs to boost Stadia sales.

If You re A Google Pixel Owner You re In Luck

With Google Stadia being a streaming service and all it opens some crazy opportunities to play your favorite games. We're talking playing Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p on your phone or booting up an ancient desktop you're keeping in your attic and running Mortal Kombat 11 with no trouble at all. Once again, the idea of Stadia is pretty wild. If you're traveling and don't feel like hauling around all your heavy console equipment or desktop, Stadia proves to be a perfect option. Unfortunately, as of today, you can only play on Pixel phones -- Google is promising more Android support later this year, however.

Ten Timed Exclusives Are Slated For 2020

Unlike most companies in the video game industry that plaster their announcements all over the internet, Google is very hush-hush about Stadia. The latest news that went under the radar is a promise that they'll release 120 games for Stadia in 2020, 10 of which will be exclusives. This announcement is giving a lot of hope to early investors in the console, especially because Stadia has a meager library of 26 games at the moment. In this announcement, Google also stated that they would be rolling out updates for 4K gaming on the web and “further [Google] Assistant functionality” when playing Stadia through Chrome.

It Does Have One Exclusive Game Already

As video game console history has indicated to us time and time again; your console can be the bees knees when it comes to power, but if it lacks good games, then it ain't gonna sell. Stadia's library is sorry, to say the least, but their one standout disappointment is their one exclusive game, GYLT. It's a game that may look like a charming indie game and was even developed by the developers of Rime and co-developer of The Sexy Brutale. GYLT is a fine game, although it's a bit boring and lacks all the elements that make games like this feel personal and touching. But it's still solid overall.

The Player Count Is Low

With all the flack that Stadia has been getting it isn't too surprising that the player counts for its games are low -- like embarrassingly low. 9,960 Stadia players logged into Destiny 2 on November 20, according to the stat-tracking On that same day, 1.37 million players logged into Destiny 2 across all platforms, and 550,000 logged of those were on Steam -- meaning that Destiny 2 players on Stadia make up 0.7 percent of the games community. And this isn't a niche indie game we're talking about, this is Destiny 2 - A game that was bundled with every Stadia console!

Owners Get Two Free Games Each Month

We guess we should put the term "free" in quotations because you are paying for the $10 dollar subscription fee to receive these games. It's essentially saying that you watch movies on Netflix or Hulu for free, forgetting about the $5-$10 dollar price tag that you ship out each month. But seeing as $10 bucks isn't doing too much to your wallet you can consider these "free" if you're a Stadia owner. Right now the free games are Destiny 2, Metro Exodus, Farming Simulator 19, GYLT and Thumper. While the library is small it does feature really solid games that every Stadia fan should get their hands on.

Google s Acquired Studios And Major Developers For Stadia

At least Google is demonstrating to gamers and Stadia fans that they're making efforts to one day make Stadia a premiere console in the industry. They've hired Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager for Google, who also made the initial announcement at Harrison has worked with video game developers Rare back in their glory days and has helped usher in almost every great Xbox exclusive including Halo and Gears of War. He's worked with a laundry list of game developers and companies and is a great guy to be the head of Stadia. In addition Google just acquired Typhoon Studios who will be releasing their first game, Journey to the Savage Planet, later this year.

It Actually Fares Well With Coffee Shop WiFi

Google Stadia is one wonky system that sometimes interacts better with cheap coffee shop WiFi. If you purchase the system, a Chromecast Ultra will be included which is Google's best streaming utility and certainly helps cut out the lag and boost frame rates when you're gaming. But the service is so all over the place that even when you have excellent WiFi and your Chromecast Ultra, you still might have a hard time trying to stream games. So if you're getting frustrated with the service just head over to a coffee shop or library and you'd be surprised at how well you might fare.

Google Hasn t Been The Nicest To Its Customers

There's nothing worse than when a company leaves its customers in the dark, or finds a way to even disrespect the people who have shelled out their hard-earned money for a product. Well, Google isn't there yet, but they need to stop leaving their customers in the dark. At one point, Stadia went an incredible forty days without any new games or updates, announcements, releases, etc. What made that even worse was that at the time it had only been out for sixty-nine days in total.

Overall The System Has A Long Way To Go

Stadia has so much potential and that's why it's so frustrating to see that Google has released a console as a full-fledged product when it's clearly in its Alpha stages. A video game streaming service may have little appeal to hardcore gamers who are content with their consoles or rigs already. What it can do is usher casual gamers who don't have the money, equipment or know-how of modern gaming into the world that we all love. Hopefully, Stadia gets themselves together, and until then we can either wait for it to live up to its potential or invest in Nividia. Related Topics About The Author Isaiah McCall is a junior at Ramapo College of New Jersey and is a Communication Arts major with a concentration in Journalism. Isaiah loves gaming, writing and trashing others in Ping-Pong.