Today, at GDC, Google revealed Stadia, their new games streaming service. It turns out that the rumoured Google games console wasn’t a console at all. Stadia will offer gamers the ability to play any game, no matter how demanding it may be, seemingly on any device. All you need is an internet connection, a controller and a screen.
Currently, Stadia can deliver 60fps at up to 4k resolution, with plans to support 8k in the future, all through the Chrome browser. Gone are the lengthy download times and expense of upgrading to the latest hardware many gamers are faced with. If it works as claimed, Stadia could revolutionise gaming for everyone.
Watch the entire presentation below:
Stadia will run using a custom AMD graphics card offering 10.7 TFLOPS of computing power per gamer. To put this into perspective that is more powerful than the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X combined. Stadia will also support multiple GPUs per title giving developers a lot more power to play with.
As everything is cloud-based the potential for abolishing cheating in multiplayer games is very high and we should see a much better playing field.
Google claims that you could be watching a gaming video on YouTube via the Chrome Browser and hit the Play Now button and be playing the game in under five seconds.
Stadia already has several partners onboard including ID Software, Epic Games, Crytek and AMD. I’m sure this will grow rapidly over time.
Check out the Stadia website for more information.
