Google Stadia, the company’s new game streaming service made a big splash at the Game Developers Conference yesterday. Coming later this year, Google Stadia will be the first next-gen gaming platform delivering 10 teraflops of computing power, with the ability to stream 4K/60 fps gaming on all devices including phones.
Obviously, Xbox execs are paying close attention to Google Stadia, which will compete with Microsoft’s upcoming Project xCloud game streaming service. In an internal email sent to the Xbox team and published by Thurrott.com, Xbox head Phil Spencer shared that he’s taking this new competition from Google very seriously. “There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller, the exec said.
Spencer also said that Google Stadia was “a validation of the path we embarked on two years ago,” adding that “we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big. You can read Spencer’s full email below:
We just wrapped up watching the Google announcement of Stadia as team here at GDC. Their announcement is validation of the path we embarked on two years ago..
Today we saw a big tech competitor enter the gaming market, and frame the necessary ingredients for success as Content, Community and Cloud. There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller.
But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet. Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big.
We have to stay agile and continue to build with our customer at the center. We have the content, community, cloud team and strategy, and as I’ve been saying for a while, it’s all about execution. This is even more true today.
Energizing times.
Phil
There are still a lot of unknows about Google Stadia, including pricing details and launch titles. Google showed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey running on Google Stadia yesterday, and we also learned that the upcoming Doom Eternal will also be available on the platform and run at 4K/60 fps. Compared to Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which will be leveraging the ageing Xbox One S architecture, Google Stadia promises much more power and a deep integration with YouTube. However, Google will need to convince game developers to port their games on Google Stadia, while Microsoft promised that all existing Xbox games will run on Project xCloud.
As we’re nearing the end of this console generation, it seems that game streaming technology could have a big impact on the video games industry. And Microsoft definitely shouldn’t underestimate Google, which will be able to reach million of gamers on PCs, smartphones, Chromecasts and probably other devices in the future.
