[vhab]

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me.

We worked on a Stadia title before launch. We were constantly reminded by Google how big the YouTube integration would be, which unique killer features we absolutely had to integrate with, and more.

And non of that ever materialized after launch. If Google can't even convince their own internal teams to cooperate, how do they expect studios and consumers to care the slightest for their product.

It also didn't help that supporting Stadia was equivalent to supporting an entirely different new console in scope, except less battle tested and much more buggy. Meanwhile all their competitors allow existing console or Windows builds to be shipped to their platforms.

And while we're sharing anecdotes, this was a fun one. For the longest time devkits were limited to 1080p, but at least the output was streamed from rack mounted servers that supported a couple of concurrent sessions. A few months before launch, they finally made 4k devkits available, except they supported only a single session, couldn't stream, and instead had to sit at a developer's desk with a monitor hooked up...

Let that sink in, a streaming service's devkits couldn't stream :)

[dougmwne]

From the consumer perspective, this reminds me of the new chromecast that was released without Stadia support, even though the previous chromecast supported it. Get that! A streaming stick that couldn’t stream the company’s own paid service. Preposterous!

[traspler]

Do you think the YouTube integration and the other "killer features" you mentioned would have made Stadia more popular if they actually came to fruition?

Personally I believe if the YouTube integration was ready at launch the whole Stadia story would have been very, very different. I do believe that a frictionless way to jump into a game that you are currently watching a video/stream for or even join a streamer in multiplayer with a click would have been an amazing thing!

[postalrat]

IMO streaming games still has a lot of potential. Too bad Google couldn't pull it off.

The Youtube stuff is only the surface of what would be possible.

[iLoveOncall]

> IMO streaming games still has a lot of potential.

Not with the current internet speed.

The vast majority of people is below anything that would play "okay", and almost everyone is below a speed that would play well (1 GBPS).

Until 1 GBPS is the default EVERYWHERE, streaming games has 0 potential.

[synicalx]

> a streaming service's devkits couldn't stream

That is just mind boggling - how on earth were you meant to test anything properly?

[JyB]

> how big the YouTube integration would be, which unique killer features

Exactly, this was advertised so much even to regular users/consumers and it genuinely seemed like it could be really cool. I'm baffled that nothing really came out in the end.