We’ve discussed before (in our article on Samsung & Hatch teaming up) how the future of mobile gaming might exist in the cloud, instead of on your phone. Well, today marks another interesting part of that journey.
Google has been working on a product called Stadia – a subscription-based cloud gaming solution. Let’s call it Netflix for video games. The goal is to seamlessly integrate your gaming experience across any device with a screen, without pushing that device to the processing and graphics limits (because all the heavy lifting is done in the cloud and just transmitted like a Netflix video back to you).
Today, Stadia will be announcing more details on this upcoming video game streaming platform at 12 PM Eastern Time – live on YouTube. But it appears some of the information was too hard to keep locked down.
We’ve heard a few reports about the leaks – and we have no source in the matter so we have no way to confirm or deny their truthfulness – though we do believe they are likely correct. Here’s what we’ve heard so far (and again – this could be incorrect as we have not been able to validate it)
There are three major contenders in the cloud gaming space that will all be releasing products in the next year or two. Amazon has a product that it is working on for potential release in 2020. And Microsoft has a product they’re pushing to release in 2019 as well. Whatever the results, Stadia should be expanding to work on all devices, allowing seamless transition from your 20-year-old computer, to your mobile phone, to your 4k TV, all while playing the same game instance.
And while the capacity to do so seamlessly and to perform on the cloud as well as we’ve come to expect on our phones is still in question, it certainly seems like a great idea to be able to play major console games direct on your mobile phone. I, for one, am excited at the prospect of that type of future.