A couple of days ago Director of Product for Google Stadia Andrey Doronichev has participated in Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). He has answered a variety of questions and shared many details of the upcoming project. Follow the link above to the Reddit thread or check out the TL/DR below:
- Stadia Pro is not “Netflix for Games”. The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, 5.1 sound, exclusive discounts and access to a growing pool of free games. If you stop your subscription and then re-subscribe again at a later point, you will regain access to those Pro games you claimed in the past while you were a subscriber. But not the ones that were offered to Pro subscribers while you were unsubscribed.
- There are going to be achievements but not immediately at launch
- You’ll see the UI in November. “We have a great UX team and we’re putting a lot of love into it.”
- No free games on Stadia Base
- “We’ll get all the basic functionality at launch – play games across screens, no waiting for downloads or patches, social, store, etc. Of course it’s not going to be every feature we announced at our vision announcement at day 1”
- A lot is being invested in Social, Communications and Safety on Stadia. At launch you’ll be able to manage your friends list, create parties and use platform-level voice chat. And that’s just the beginning.
- Google is “super committed” to Stadia. There are hundreds of passionate people who have spent years building it, there is a lot invested in tech, infrastructure, and content.
- The Stadia Controller comes with a headphone jack for wired audio, but won’t support Bluetooth audio at launch in November.
- November launch is just the beginning! The greatest thing about Stadia and cloud gaming is that it will keep improving.
- There will be Family Sharing early next year. At launch, Stadia will have Parental Dashboard.
- You should expect game prices to be competitive with other platforms.
- Stadia supports HID controllers – Xbox Controller, DualShock4, etc. If you want to play on your TV, you’ll need the Stadia Controller and a Chromecast Ultra.
- Both cross-play and cross-progression are big priorities.
- There will be no mod support in November, but they would like to have it in the future
- Stadia will support indie developers
Moving to the cloud is scary. I felt the same way when music was transitioning from files to streaming. I still have all my old CDs in the garage… although it’s hard to find a CD player these days 🙂
The same happened to Movies and Photos and my Docs and other files… And it’s great! Games are no different. Eventually all of our games will be safely in the cloud too and we’ll feel great about it. We’ve been investing a ton in tech, infrastructure and partnerships over the past few years. Nothing in life is certain, but we’re committed to making Stadia a success.
The games you buy on Stadia are yours to play. From day one we’ll support Takeout, so that you can download your game metadata, including saves if you want to.
Of course, it’s ok to doubt my words. Theres nothing I can say now to make you believe if you don’t. But what we can do is to launch the service and continue investing in it for years to come. Exactly how we’ve been doing with gMail, Docs, Music, Movies and Photos. That’s exactly what we’re committed to.
