Today, Google has shared how they are going to be getting into the video game industry with the reveal of Stadia. There will be no console or PC needed, and you will not need to download or use a disc to play games. During the reveal event at GDC, a demonstration was presented on how the service will work, showing off some of the unique features that will be available for Stadia and a look at the Stadia controller.
Stadia will be able to be used across multiple devices including laptops, desktops, and select phones and tablets. Games will be streamed in 4k at 60 frames per second at launch, but they plan to support 8k at 120 frames per second in the future.
In the demonstration of the service, someone was playing a game on a Chromebook, then switched to a phone, PC, tablet, and ending the demonstration on a TV. The most unique thing about the demonstration was that the game was being picked up from where it was left off every time devices were switched.
In addition to the instant access of Stadia, there are also other unique features that Stadia will have. Style Transfer ML allows developers to test new art styles; State Sharing allows players to create a link for a game state which other players pick and play the game from where the game state was created; Crowd Play allows for YouTube streamers to play games with viewers by creating a queue.
Stadia is going to be powered from Google’s worldwide data centers, which are located in more than 200 countries and territories and streamed over hundreds of millions of miles of fiber optic cable. Stadia is apparently more graphically more powerful than the PlayStation 4 Pro and the Xbox One X combined, and will have 10.7 GPU teraflops while the Xbox One X has 6.0 and the PlayStation 4 Pro has 4.2.
Google also revealed the Stadia controller was designed for the service in mind. You can get help from developers with a push of a button as well as share your experiences with a click of the capture button. The controller connects through Wi-Fi to the game running in the Google data center.
The Mountain View-based company also announced its own first-party studio, Stadia Games & Entertainment, which will be run by Jade Raymond, who recently announced that she was joining Google. The studio will make exclusive content for Stadia and work with external studios to bring all of Stadia’s unique features to their games.
Doom Eternal was announced as a game that will be on Stadia and that it will run at 4k and 60 frames per second. More information about the games that will be available to play at launch and beyond will be unveiled in the summer. Stadia will launch this year in the U.S., Canada, UK, and Europe, but no price was revealed.