Google Stadia guide: 5 reasons why you'll pay up
Google Stadia is inevitably going to be a part of your future, whether it be for games or post-game services. Today we're taking a peek at 10 reasons why I believe you're either going to use Google Stadia or something very similar to Google Stadia in the near future. This is about 5G, it's about access to as much content as possible, it's about the very nature of personal computing.
5. It'll be fun
Google Stadia is the latest iteration of what I first encountered all the way back in April of 2014. That was called Remote GameStream, and it worked on NVIDIA devices. In the following video I was playing Titanfall through my PC at home, but I was doing so on the NVIDIA SHIELD (handheld gaming device) in a different city!
I knew back then that I'd have loved to have this sort of service when I was a teenager. It would have been massively addicting and I'd have never gotten anything done in the real world. It'll be fun, sure, but it won't be good news for teachers.
4. Streaming Games will seem normal
Right now I rarely write about "mobile games" because, for the most part, most bits of "mobile gaming" news are not relevant to most people. When people want to play a mobile game, they mostly just download things they've heard of before – or just download something that's on the app store's front page.
But with the dawn of cloud gaming services – ones that work, mind you – the idea that you'd play ANY game on ANY device will seem normal. The concept of "mobile games" might well become a term of the past.
3. Game streaming sub will be expected
Netflix has over 160-million subscribers right this minute, 60-million of which are in the USA. According to the US Census Population Clock, the US population clocks in at around 329-million right this minute. One in every 5.48 people in the USA subscribes to Netflix.
According to The Entertainment Software Association, 60-percent of Americans play video games DAILY. Now imagine Google takes the Netflix model and applies it to video games. If Google does Stadia right, it'll seem silly to NOT simply give them part of your check every month in exchange for their streaming library of games.
2. 5G could change your life
So you remember the difference between 3G and 4G LTE. I remember how cool it was that I could download an app in less than a few minutes, or even stream a video without waiting for it to load! What a game-changer that was.
Now imagine being able to use a full-powered PC from a remote location on any controlling touchscreen you like. Imagine being able to use that PC without any sort of perceivable lag, thanks to 5G. That's what's next – starting with games, of course.
1. A Computer-Generated Dream World
If Facebook, Apple, or Amazon made a streaming game service, do you think you'd subscribe? How about if Sony and Microsoft teamed up and made a competing service? Would it be called PlayBox Live?
Or might this be a Netflix/Hulu type situation, where one still dominates, but both have such a different set of contents, it's almost a foregone conclusion that you'll subscribe to both? Is this the way of the future – tithing to brands as a matter of expectation? This might well be the world we live in, very soon (if not already).