The OP is incorrect, but in the opposite direction than you are thinking. The monthly subscription is optional (it gets you 4k streaming, instead of 1080p, and discounts / free games similar to Playstation Plus or similar). You do have to buy the games.

So yeah, if they discontinue Stadia it is an open question what happens to the games you purchased on it. They have avoided questions on it, unsurprisingly.

Subscription gets you "up to" 4k, right now none of the titles is true 4k, they are upscaled from lower resolution 1080p or 1440p.

Yeah, that part is pretty crazy. I wonder if that is just up to the game developers, or if they were given a limited compute budget and the current 1080p / 1440p base resolutions were the best they could get? Maybe Stadia can't deliver the needed latencies at full native 4k?

Unless I am misunderstanding, the 4k up-res is happening on Google's side, so it's not like they are skimping on bandwidth.

Upscaled on the device you already paid for, yet somehow need a subscription to use the upscaling.

No, it is upscaled on the google side, before it is sent over the net.

I agree, if they had launched a subscription service to a large catalog of games that would have been really something -- like how Netflix created an alternative to the buy/rent single titles model.

I suspect they didn't have enough clout with development studios to create that pricing structure.

As an example, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is $59.99 on Stadia ($39.99 with subscription for 4K). On Steam it's currently $59.99 too, but at 4K without the extra subscription.

Game distribution is a hyper-competitive market right now, with Epic Games in particular giving away high quality games for free every week on their Steam competitor and paying developers up front to get timed exclusives.

I think Google's going to have to re-visit its pricing and customer acquisition model on this one.

> On Steam it's currently $59.99 too, but at 4K without the extra subscription.

But with a requirement for a $400-$1300 graphics card, depending on the FPS and quality you want. And no hope of running it at 4K on most laptops.

> And no hope of running it at 4K on most laptops.

Most laptops also don't have 4K screens, so it's a moot point.

Perhaps. But I just decided to look at Google Play Movies for the first time in years, and to watching some Avengers movie on there is 18 SGD (approx. 12 EUR). For one movie.

I'm not saying their Games strategy will mirror the one taken for Movies, but I'd advice waiting to see what will happen.

It's entirely possible this is just a licensing thing. The early days of legal movie and music downloads were an expensive mess too.

I'd expect after a few years of game streaming competition someone will try to undercut the market with a Netflix model.

Microsoft is curenlty alpha testing its xcloud service by the looks of it, which encompasses exactly that. There is also the Nvidia streaming service too.

There is a no monthly fee version that you only have to buy games to use eventually that will be limited to 1080p streams. 4k costs a monthly fee + the cost of games though they are saying there will be some discounts to games if you're paying for the better service.

But the issue is that the games with 4k, are currently only upscaled to 4k - https://9to5google.com/2019/11/20/stadia-4k-games-quality/

Oh yeah the whole thing is kind of a shit show right now but that's what they're pitching so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment and treating this like one big early access trial for the minute. From all indications this launch came in incredibly hot with the lineup doubling at the last minute, almost as if they had some last minute major issues with some of their Linux ports.

Two of those games are motion type games (dance, exercise).

The stadia controller doesn’t have motion controls.

Those games are useless, who’ll pay $60 for them?

You use your phone for those iirc.

To me, I see it as an alternative to Steam or the Epic Store. They provide a free service, I just pay for the games I want to get.

(the subscription is optional, gives you discounts and free games, so it might be a good deal for some people)

Don't be all negative. At the very least Google would pay engineers like us a decent salary to enhance the technology to keep CPU away from Keyboard/Mouse/Screen. By the time Google is done with this and decommission their service, we would be walking around with the new "Mac 2025" which is scuba diving water proof with CPU and OS hosted on iCloud available for a $1000/year subscription.