Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage at GDC today to reveal the company’s next steps into gaming.
Stadia is the name of the new streaming platform, Pichai announced, before Phil Harrison took the stage to detail some of its functionality.
Streaming is at the cloud platform’s core — it’s not a box, unless you count all the boxes needed to house the games at Google. The product is meant to allow players to pick up and instantly play a game on whatever device they’re using, so long as it has a Chrome browser. In an example, the company showed a YouTube trailer for a game, with a “Play Now” button clearly presented next to it. If a player is interested in the game, one click of the button and the game starts within 5 seconds. Using a Google account, players can pause the game on one device (say, a PC) and pick up right away from any other browser (like a phone, for instance) at the exact same spot.
What’s more, save states can be shared among players, so that sending the game’s position to the rest of the world will allow other players to jump right in at that same point. This could be an interesting way to crowd-source getting help from friends should players get stuck somewhere in a game.
Stadia can use many existing devices and controllers, but the company showed off its own specific version. The Stadia controller connects to the service via Wifi, and contains two extra buttons over most other gamepads. The first is a capture button, sending videos directly to YouTube. Because Stadia actually delivers two streams, the YouTube version is based on a second, delivering a 4k 60fps video to the site. The second button is Google’s Assistant, allowing players to speak into the built-in mic and ask for help in the game or features.
The platform itself is based on AMD hardware that delivers 10.7 Teraflops (more than the current PS4 and Xbox One).
A few games were mentioned, such as NBA 2k, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Doom Eternal, with a launch date of 2019.
Source: Google
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