Google has finally revealed more about Stadia, its upcoming game streaming service. The brief pitch is compelling: play state-of-the-art games like the upcoming Ghost Recon Breakpoint without spending hundreds of dollars on a console or PC. But Stadia also comes packaged with stipulations and requirements you have to meet in order to get the most out of it, and the question «what problem does this solve?» looms
Google has finally revealed more about Stadia, its upcoming game streaming service. The brief pitch is compelling: play state-of-the-art games like the upcoming Ghost Recon Breakpoint without spending hundreds of dollars on a console or PC.
But Stadia also comes packaged with stipulations and requirements you have to meet in order to get the most out of it, and the question «what problem does this solve?» looms heavy over Google’s enthusiastic marketing. It’s hard to say who, realistically, will want to buy games that they can only play streaming over their internet connection.
You’re going to need good internet
Though Stadia will work on a range of internet speeds, you’re going to need a 35Mbps connection to stream games at 4K 60 fps. At minimum, you’ll need a 10Mbps connection for 720p 60 fps (which should be pretty OK if you’re just using Stadia on your phone or tablet).
Considering Stadia’s broad appeal, these requirements might be an obstacle for many users. The average internet speed in the United States was 18.7Mbps (in 2017), which is more than enough for watching Netflix in HD, but not quite enough to play Stadia games at 1080p 60 fps.
More concerning is that many internet users have caps on how much data they can use in a month. With a data cap at 1TB, you can get roughly 65 hours of 4K 60 fps Stadia playtime before using up all of your data—and that’s if you use your internet connection for absolutely nothing else. 65 hours might seem like a lot, but it only comes out to around a couple hours of gaming per day, which is hardly unheard of.
