Google Stadia: A Future Here Too Soon

With the release of the Google Stadia, the company has teased to make the dream of every gamer a reality: a take it everywhere service that allows for high quality games to be played no matter the circumstance. Though promising when it works, Google Stadia’s launch brings forth just enough issues to make this latest idea one that I will stay away from.

It’s when you unpack the Google Stadia experience, that you start to notice that Google may have brought us this future too soon. By observing different reviewers, I quickly came to notice that YouTubers with close to or over 1 Million subscribers truly enjoyed their time with Stadia, most likely due to the smooth experience provided by their high-speed office WiFi. Smaller channels on the other hand, who tested Stadia in a more every day scenario, had a rougher experience, many times reporting the experience as unusable.

Furthermore, Google Stadia serves as yet another proof that whilst Google can create great services, it cannot provide customer service that matches the quality of their products. Roughly a few days after its release, users were still reporting lacking their Stadia codes, making those who trusted Google enough to purchase the pricey preorder very quickly regret it.

When it works however, Google Stadia seems to fulfil every promise it has ever made, allowing a steady switch between the TV, Chrome and mobile devices. Yet even at its best, Google Stadia seems rushed at best. Not only does the service not offer a large enough variety of games people have not already played, but the two games that it does ship with, Destiny 2 and Samurai Shodown, can be found so cheap that it makes Stadia’s preorder experience mediocre at best.

It’s ability to be played on a mobile phone, whilst cool, is also very underwhelming. Currently, the service is only offered on Google’s own Pixel lineup, meaning that only a small portion of Google Stadia owners can truly enjoy all the services it has to offer.

Google Stadia is a product that in concept brings many of my childhood dreams to fruition, but in actuality, it lacks many features and the finesse required to truly succeed in today’s competitive video game market. While it may be super awesome to play Red Dead 2 in the comfort of my bed, I think I’ll just stick with its PS4 version for the meanwhile.