Google’s Stadia Gaming “is so unreliable its cost seems outrageous”

Just last week in Google Stadia Streaming Gaming is Having Troubles: Bigger Problem – Usage Caps I pointed out that the problem with streaming gaming is its dependency on Internet infrastructure and its architecture. Gizmodo’s bottom line is… well, not great. YouTubers too.

Gizmodo’s bottom line is… well, not great. In its article Stadia Is a Glimpse Into the Future—But Maybe Not Yours or Google’s.

LIKE
When it works perfectly it’s pretty neat!
NO LIKE
It very rarely works perfectly, and is so unreliable its cost seems outrageous.

Gizmodo

Internet Infrastructure a Problem

They also made the point I did about the Internet’s infrastructure not being able to support streaming gaming.

The problem, as I’ve noted ad nauseum at this point, is that the internet is rarely as robust as it needs to be to handle game streaming. Unless you live in a big city with access to big internet pipes, game streaming—and even 4K movie streaming—is a pipe dream. The internet in the U.S. is abysmal, particularly in rural areas. I have friends living 60 miles outside of Colorado Springs that struggle with getting HD Netflix streams on their Roku. Stadia would be impossible for them.

Gizmodo

Latency is a Deal Breaker

Alex Cranz in the Gizmodo article also makes the point I was making about Internet latency being a deal breaker.

Stadia’s stutters made a shooter like Destiny 2 a miserable experience.

Red Dead Redemption 2 … was still a sub-HD performance that left all the characters looking like blurry blobs.

Gizmodo

Google’s History of Killing Products

And another point I posited, Google’s commitment, or lack there of, to products:

While I might trust Apple or Microsoft to fully commit themselves to a badly launched product like Stadia, Google has a history of cutting its losses. It likes to launch all kinds of neat tools and apps… and then quietly axe them a few years later.

Gizmodo

Bad Product Decisions

Oh and the bad product management decisions Google makes:

Stadia is a beta you have to buy, and that’s never, ever going to be a good idea.

It’s a beta that Google wants you to pay money for. Don’t do it.

…Nvidia’s offering has been in beta for four years, while Microsoft’s beta launched last month. Google’s Stadia absolutely should have done the same, rather than ask people to spend $130 on a buggy service, and then spend $20 to $60 a piece on the games available on that service.

Gizmodo

6 Reasons Google Stadia Will Fail

HILARIOUS !!!! – The Top 10 Reasons Why Stadia Will (Probably) Fail

Watch the first 45 seconds – It’s HILARIOUS !!!!

Maybe Never

I predict Google will give up and kill this, like it’s done so many times before. And it will be years before streaming gaming from anyone makes any sense at all. If ever.

It might never make sense, because the UX and front end keeps advancing. Graphics at HD, then 4K, HDR, 8K, then what’s next ? Streaming gaming can’t keep up with just HD now. It may just keep making more sense to put the horsepower in front end hardware, and continue to use the Internet for networking players.