Gaming on PC has always been an expensive hobby. Growing up, I used to dream about being able to afford a real gaming computer. Our family PC was running Windows 3.1 well into the heyday of Windows 98. I used to tear pages out of PC Gamer, and even WIRED magazine, and pin them to my wall the same way boys did with sports cars—except my Lamborghini and Ferrari were Falcon Northwest and Alienware. To that young girl, and every other kid like her, Google Stadia would seem like magic. It's a lot easier to sell your parents on $10 a month than it is to convince them that several thousand dollars’ worth of gaming hardware is a worthwhile investment.
Stadia is Google’s first deep foray into the world of gaming. It’s part game console, part streaming service—like Netflix but for videogames. For a single subscription fee of $10, Google promises to stream PC-quality games to practically any device that can run a web browser. That's one hell of a promise. If Google can pull it off, Stadia is positioned to substantially lower the financial barriers to PC and console gaming.
Google is not the first company to design this kind of service. OnLive, PlayStation Now, even Nvidia have tried—and mostly failed. The difference here is what I like to call the Apple phenomenon. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, but it sanded off all the edges and made a really good MP3 player. That's what Google aims to do here for streaming games.
If Google has its way, PC and console gaming are about to become more accessible to millions of users, and that’s an incredible feat no matter how you slice it. But as always, there's a catch.
The promise of Stadia is that you can play your games anywhere. You could do it right now, on your work or school laptop, just as easily as you'd sign into Gmail. The service lets you stream games over the internet like you might watch a YouTube video—no downloading required, no pesky updates.
You don’t really need to buy anything, either. You just need a Stadia subscription and a compatible device. You can play on a TV with a Google Chromecast Ultra attached, a Google Pixel phone, any computer with a Google Chrome browser. That means, essentially, that you decide how much you want to invest in the Stadia ecosystem.
Big spenders who want a console-like experience can buy the Stadia Premiere Edition, which includes a Chromecast Ultra, a Stadia controller, three months of Stadia Pro (more on subscriptions below), and one additional game, for $129.
The Premiere Edition's official Stadia controller is great. It’s a familiar design, a hybrid of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers with soft rounded edges and a pleasantly textured surface. The buttons are snappy and the joysticks feel smooth. After a while, I've begun wishing I could use it with more than just Stadia games. It doesn't beat my current favorite, the Nintendo Switch Pro controller, but it's at least as good as a DualShock or Xbox One gamepad.
The Stadia service is out now if you buy the Premiere Edition, but it’s still in an early access period. In February 2020, the service launches for real. When it does, it will have a tier with no subscription fee where users can buy games (currently they're about $60 apiece, but Pro subscribers often get discounts) and stream them at 1080p and 60 frames per second. For $10 a month, the Pro tier will offer access to a roster of free games slated to grow regularly. Right now it just includes Destiny 2.
With Stadia Pro, you can play games in 4K HDR, with all the graphics settings cranked up to max no matter what kind of hardware you’re running (as long as it’s a compatible device). That’s possible because you’re not actually playing the game on your device. A Google server farm is running the game and streaming the video output to your TV, web browser, or Pixel phone. You don’t have to download anything; it just streams like a YouTube video, albeit one you control. This has some serious consequences for the gameplay experience, though.
For instance, one of the launch titles on Google Stadia is Mortal Kombat 11, and it’s a bizarre choice. Fighting games are notoriously finicky when it comes to latency. It's already frustrating to play a fighting game online because any lag means botched combos or mistimed reactions. When you add on the few extra milliseconds Stadia requires to communicate with its servers, there’s a substantial lag between your button press and the punches, kicks, and blocks you execute.