Personally I think this will have the same lifetime as a lot of other google products: it’ll launch, have some success, and then be killed unceremoniously a couple of years down the line.
Game reddits (and other forums) are legendarily toxic.
1) software as a service
2) streaming music
3) streaming video
4) digital games
There just isn't enough people caring about physically owning something these days.
and since most games use the same steam stub this would be a pretty easy thing to do
Those are the herds we all profit from. Not whales but cows. Why would I want to be on the bleeding edge and get a shit experience?
I think it's very hard. The best article ever written on this subject is "So You Want to Compete with Steam" [1] and it applies as equally well to Playstation/Xbox.
[1] https://www.fortressofdoors.com/so-you-want-to-compete-with-...
1. They are also targeting people with no gaming pc / console
2. A big part of the plan is the leverage Youtube to bring people in
3. Most of the infrastructure is already there for the rest of Google, so this isn't too much of an overhead for them
Put all this together, and it doesn't look as crazy as some think it is. #2 is really the crux of the strategy though.
If Google delivers a great product here, they'll for sure have a huge number of users IMO.