It’s been a few months now since Google launched their streaming-only console, the Stadia. Of course, it hasn’t set the world on fire yet and it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon if a report from Business Insider is to be believed. Could Google’s penchant for dropping platforms on a dime be hampering its current efforts in making streaming gaming console a reality?
The Stadia was promised and sort of positioned in the market as a Netflix-like source for gaming. What it has turned out to be by now is something with few games and a questionable future.
Even so, Google touts some big names coming to the Stadia this year, including Cyberpunk 2077 and DOOM Eternal.
But, as one unnamed developer told Business Insider’s Ben Gilbert, the incentive to bring games to Stadia isn’t really there yet.
“We were approached by the Stadia team…Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them.”
Another developer said that the incentive portion wasn’t even really a part of the discussions between themselves and Google.
“When we’re looking at these types of deals,” the dev said, “We’re looking at ‘Is this enough money where we have the resources to make what we want, or is this an exclusivity deal that gives us security?’”
Other unnamed developers in the article mentioned concerns with audience reach and Google’s history with cancelling previous projects if they aren’t a breakout success.
No matter what happens with Google’s latest project, the interest that companies are expressing in streaming games is not likely to go away anytime soon. From eliminating physical media and hardware to giving the platform complete control over access to the gaming library, there are a lot of reasons why the gaming industry might find the Netflix model appealing.
But there’s still the issue of uniform Internet connections. That problem is rarely discussed in seriousness, in addition to the general skepticism surrounding potentially ephemeral services. You see, even though the Stadia is promising a free gaming library at some point, you still have to buy the new games as they come out. A true game changer would be a service that ACTUALLY adopted the Netflix model in total. One can dream, right?
What do you think? Is Google going about things with the Stadia all wrong? Do you own one of the consoles? Let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments section below if you like.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so-few-games-on-google-stadia-2020-2
