Google Stadia Premiere Edition - White

Product Information

Both Google Stadia subscriptions have game achievements, the ability to instantly share gameplay captures to YouTube, and cross-platform voice chat. Joker 2 is going to surprise a lot of people, says its cinematographer: "It's a pretty risky movie" Since the games are licensed to Stadia and not a platform like Steam or Origin, the location you’re in matters. That’s not true for other platforms where you can still access, say, your U.S. Steam account through the cloud gaming server. The Verdict

I'm of the mind that Stadia can absolutely live alongside PlayStation, Nintendo, and Microsoft in the gaming space because it offers just enough that's different to be its own thing. Sometimes games will come to Stadia that aren't on consoles, like Baldur's Gate 3, and other times games will just run better than they do on consoles, like Cyberpunk 2077. Having the flexibility of keyboard and mouse, or gamepad, or even phone touchscreen options to play anywhere is a huge benefit, like with Elder Scrolls Online. Even if you're not a streamer, what Stadia did offer right out of the box is screen capture, a useful feature in the social media age, and a Friends List, which is nice if you want to party up with friends to play Destiny.Screen differences aside, however, games simply don't look quite as sharp streaming over Stadia as opposed to playing a local version of the same title on the same hardware. The reason for this seems to be Stadia prioritizing input over graphical fidelity when streaming; in Destiny I saw a few hiccups where details dropped for a moment, but my controls stayed responsive. This is how Stadia should work, though, since games feeling good to play is far more important than games looking good. And neither Destiny 2 nor Mortal Kombat 11 look bad in Chrome tabs, just not as sharp as playing the same title locally.

What do you think of Stadia? Are you going to buy the Premiere Edition or wait until Base launches? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading. Stadia FAQ For this test, we tried something that we knew would look good on a 4K HDR TV - Destiny 2 - Cast from the Stadia app on our phone to Chromecast Ultra in the living room. Despite our reservations, Destiny 2 ran in 4K/60 without any issues on a 50Mbps wireless connection with no noticeable delays or artifacting - even in particularly intense firefights. Stadia’s design and interface are brilliant and drop-dead simple to use. On both mobile and desktop, your home screen is essentially all the games you have in your collection with the top-most game the game that you played last.Once you've decided on the platforms you want to use, you need to meet some minimum requirements. Streaming games requires a fast internet connection —Google recommends at least 10Mbps. Besides the speed requirements, Stadia has some regional limitations. It's available in the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Puerto Rico, and most of Western Europe. It isn't available in Hawaii or Guam, or any other country outside of Europe. I believe the input lag between the controller and Stadia when playing through a Chromecast Ultra is due to the wireless connection between the controller and the Chromecast itself. With every other available Stadia setup, the controller is connected to the Stadia device through a cable, so the entire process of streaming over the internet is performed through the phone or PC, with inputs sent through a fast wired connection. When playing with a Chromecast Ultra, the controller wirelessly syncs with the Chromecast, creating another network stepping point in the streaming process. At one time, you could only access Stadia through a Stadia Pro subscription, but that requirement has since been lifted. You're now allowed to use Stadia for free. In fact we even saw free demos periodically that you can try at no cost.