Google, on Thursday gave access to Stadia from anyone who owned a modern Android device. At launch the service was restricted only to Google’s own Pixel line of devices and it later expanded support to Samsung, Asus, Razr and OnePlus devices.
However, after the newest expansion of devices the company has soared past 1 million installations of the Stadia app. For reference back on March 10th the company passed 500,000 downloads (after launching the service a little over 4 months prior).
Google has said they plan to keep a list of devices that are optimized for Stadia (which you can expect on the higher end mobile devices). There is now also an experimental feature to force Stadia to run on any device which can be found under Settings -> Experiments “Play On This Device.” Google though has made clear that this might affect gaming performance and I am going to go out on a limb and say it will.
Furthermore, Stadia has also added a virtual gamepad that let’s users play without a connected controller. You can now also select the streaming quality on a per-device basis meaning if you’re using Stadia on a laptop you don’t need to control the stream quality from your phone.
My Take
I love Google but they have an image problem when it comes to supporting programs and I was a bit skeptical over Stadia particularly because at launch support was limited. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but I also feel that Google needs to work on one more important piece of the puzzle which is price.
Games on Stadia are oftentimes significantly more expensive than you can find elsewhere which is fine if you never owned a console or know what Steam is. But it doesn’t make for a good value proposition for an existing gamer who might just want to play a game on their mobile device while on the go. Or, if they want to play on their Chromebook without needing some janky workaround like how we got Minecraft to run on our Chromebook.
What are your thoughts on Stadia has your experience been good or bad let us know in the comments below or signup and feel free to talk about it on our forums!
