A couple months back at GDC 2019, Google announced their intent to step into the video game streaming market with Stadia. Based around Google’s cloud computing platform that’s been heavily augmented with AMD Vega 56-caliber video cards, Google pitched Stadia as a high-end game streaming service, capable of streaming games at up to 4K@60fps with HDR. With the initial announcement being mostly a technology intro and teaser of what the service could be capable of, Google promised more to come later this year, and now in a pre-recorded presentation this morning, the company has announced their launch plans for the service and how it will work for customers.

As revealed in their announcement, Google will ultimately have options for both subscription and subscription-free gaming, with the aptly named Stadia Pro and Stadia Basic services. However only the subscription service, Stadia Pro, is launching this year, and that will arrive in November. Even with that division, however, Google won’t just be taking just anyone who wants to hand over $9.99/month for the Stadia Pro service. Instead, Google will be limiting access to the service (at least for 2019) to customers who purchase a $129 hardware and service bundle from the company, which Google calls the Stadia Founders Edition.

The Stadia Founders Edition bundle includes both 3 months of Stadia Pro service along with Google hardware and some extra perks. On the hardware front, Google will be including a Chromecast Ultra to use as a console, as well as the service’s unique Stadia Controllers, which are Wi-Fi enabled and connect directly to Google’s services rather than their host device. The Founders Edition bundle also includes a full copy of Destiny 2 as a bundled game (ed: thought I understand Destiny 2 is about to go Free-To-Play), along with whatever games are available as part of the regular Pro subscription.

Overall, the Stadia Founders Edition bundle seems to be an effort by Google to throttle early use of the service, so that they can avoid a Day 1 crush of user demand. This is a problem virtually any popular multiplayer game vendor can relate to – everyone wants to play right away – and due to Stadia’s hardware requirements, Google can’t just spin up more instances like they can over their generalized server infrastructure. None the less, it also means that at least for 2019, Stadia has a very literal buy-in requirement to use the streaming service.

Meanwhile, nothing else has been said about the server hardware itself. While we still suspect that Google is going to be using Zen 2 processors here, Google hasn’t added anything to what they announced back in March: AMD GPUs with Vega 56-like specifications, paired with a custom x86 processor that runs at 2.7GHz and supports AVX2.

Looking at the service itself, Google has by and large copied the current Xbox 1/Playstation 4 business models. The Pro service that is launching this year is priced at $9.99/month (once the Founders Edition trial service period expires), and combines a mix of free games with access to higher quality streaming. Specifically, the Pro service will allow game streaming at up to Stadia’s maximum resolution of 4K@60fps, along with 5.1 surround sound. Basic users, on the other hand, are capped at 1080p at 60fps, all with stereo sound. More nebulous is how the games included with the Pro service will work, but at a high level it sounds a lot like the Playstation Instant Game Collection/Xbox Live Games With Gold, where there will be a limited selection of games available, and subscribers will get discounted on buying further games.

Google Stadia Service Tiers
  Pro Basic
Max Resolution 4K @ 60fps 1080p @ 60fps
Audio 5.1 Stereo
"Additional Free Games" Yes No
Buy Games Yes Yes
Price $9.99/month Free

“Buying” being an operative word there. Along with the Pro subscription, Google will also be selling games on the service as well, and this will be how both the Stadia Basic service works and how Pro subscribers get access to games not included in the Pro subscription. For Stadia Basic users the concept is straightforward: if they buy games on Stadia they can stream them for free at any time, at up to the service’s 1080p resolution limit. But with Stadia Basic not launching until next year, the details on how free streaming will work are slim – mainly whether it will be truly free, or if Google will be doing something (e.g. ads) to recoup the cost of the server time. As for Pro users who are already paying for a subscription, they’ll be able to stream purchased games at 4K, like any other Stadia game.

4K support will come at a cost, however, and not just the Pro subscription. As part of today’s service announcement Google also announced how much bandwidth would be required for the service’s various supported resolutions. Peak 4K streaming will require 35Mbps, or about 16 GB/hour of data. This is well within the abilities of most consumer residential broadband services, but it means that it’s going to eat a fair bit of data in the process. And even then, there’s an argument to be made that 35Mbps is a bit low for 4K@60fps streaming (UHD Blu-rays peak at over 100Mbps), but we’ll see how things work in practice when the service launches. Meanwhile 1080p streaming will take things down a notch, with Google indicating that it will be around 20Mbps.

And, while these bandwidth ranges are also well within what a solid LTE service can provide, at least for now Google is pushing people towards using heartier, non-cellular connections for the service, telling The Verge “You should not expect your existing cellular connection to work”. So while it can be accessed from an Android smartphone, for example, in practice it looks like Stadia is going to be a moderately tethered service for now, favoring Ethernet and local Wi-Fi connections.

Finally, on the client hardware side of matters, Google has also specified what devices and platforms Stadia will initially be supported on. Out of the gate, the service will be available on Chromecast Ultra devices, the Pixel 3 series (including the 3a), as well as any computer with the Chrome browser. Google has previously announced that they want to bring access to as many devices as possible, but for now this is a Google-only affair.

Overall, Google’s plans for the service remain bold. However I’m hoping that this isn’t all Google is going to say about the hardware and how resources are allocated. There are still a lot of interesting questions to answer, not the least of which is who’s providing the Stadia CPU.

Perhaps the biggest outstanding question is what kind of image quality settings the service will be targeting – with respect to AMD, a single Vega 56 is generally a bit too weak for 4K with all the bells and whistled turned on – and what a 1080p instance gets allocated (half of a Vega 56?). There’s also the multi-GPU factor; Stadia’s infrastructure has the ability to support multiple GPUs, but will Google actually employ it, and will games devs be able to make good use of it? These are all fairly nerdy and in-depth questions, but if Google wants to be able to position Stadia as an alternative to high-end consoles, then it would be nice to see how the hardware and instancing truly stack up.

Source: Google Stadia

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  • PeachNCream - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link

    There's also the bundled three months of Stadia service which appears to go for $30.
  • webdoctors - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    How does this differ from the Nvidia streaming service that just streams your Steam games?

    I prefer that model, I own the games and I'm just paying to use the HW to stream my games. I can also play locally and my saved files are sync'd.

    Do I have to re-buy games I already own on Steam? Great to see more competition in this area. Does this mean Google abandoning Android TV as a gaming platform?
  • osteopathic1 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    Not Available in Hawaii..;-(
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    You have Diamond Head and Waikiki...Fern Grotto...did the black and green sand beaches on the Big Island survive all the volcanic activity since the 1980's? Anyway, you have enough. You don't need no stinkin' Stadia to have stuff to do.
  • ckatech - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    The base game of Year 1,2 destiny is free as well as pvp, gambit, leviathan. Forsaken raids, shadowkeep and seasons are not
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    In Google search it say's Stadia is here The future of gaming. I was like uhm no not my future of gaming. Thank you very much. I much prefer my low latency gaming sessions and to have the game on my own gaming rig that I worked hard to be able to get.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    No edit here. I also wanted to add on how Google was saying oh there will be no latency issues because you are connected directly to google through the internet. Key word here is INTERNET. Unless they are going to run millions of cables directly to everyone that is on their service you will still be connected to them just like any other service. Which means when those packets leave your internet connection they still will go through several hops bounced all around the world just like any other services. Sure they can try to do some tricks to make it feel less laggy but the truth is you can not get around how the internet was built and how it works. enough said.
  • Beaver M. - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    Yep. 10 ms would be maximum before its unplayable for me. That would basically mean it would need to be at max 10 miles away. I guess for metropolitan areas its an option, but not anywhere else.
  • lmcd - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    If their backbone is better than your ISP's backbone (and it might well be), it could actually be comparable for certain online games.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link

    I see what you are trying to say but no matter what you have to go through your ISP backbone since it is them that provide access to the internet for you. So if you have a ISP with crappy service there is little to nothing Google can do about that. One of my questions for all of this is they say buy games. So what if you already own said games are they saying oh just buy them again from them. That seems a bit counter productive on the wallet for sure. IF I own a game I am not about to buy it again just so I can use their game streaming service. It also sounds like the game selection itself will be very bleak at first and probably for a very long time.

    What they need or have to do to get everyone wanting to join in on this is yes have the subscription price but also be able to let user use their game keys with the service and they (Google get the game ready to go and be able to stream it for you. IF they can not do this then this service has failed even before it goes live and they should throw in the towel now and call it a day.

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