Google ‘Stadia’ aims to stream games from cloud

Google’s new Stadia service doesn’t need pricey hardware and could change how people buy and play games.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks onstage during the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Google has unveiled a new service called Stadia that lets players stream video games from the cloud without needing pricey hardware — an elusive feat that could change the way people buy and play games.

The Alphabet unit said Stadia will let players stream to their smartphones, tablets or computers using a Chrome browser, or to a TV using a Chromecast Ultra device. It isn’t clear whether the service will be compatible with Apple devices.

People watching video of a game on YouTube could jump directly into playing it with a click, said Google chief Sundar Pichai.

Mr. Pichai said he wasn’t a big gamer, but copped to playing FIFA soccer and cricket games, announced Stadia at an onstage event at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The service is slated to launch later this year though a specific date wasn’t given.

It’s the latest move by Silicon Valley’s tech giants in an industry with more than $130 billion in yearly revenue that has been long dominated by console-hardware makers such as Sony, and game publishers such as Electronic Arts.

Apple and Google have become major players distributing mobile games through their app stores, while Amazon owns the game-broadcasting site Twitch. Facebook is pushing games through its Messenger app.

Google is trying to go a step further, doing for video games what Netflix and Spotify Technology did for movies and music: Let people consume content without needing to buy a physical copy or even to download a file.

“It’s a threat to anyone selling a traditional console,” Jefferies analyst Tim O’Shea said.

With Google now directly in the video game business, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft face a new competitor with considerable financial resources, technological know-how and cloud expertise. Plus, with YouTube, Google has an in with the growing legion of gamers who not only like to play, but also to broadcast and watch other people play.

Microsoft, which makes the Xbox One, is already working on new streaming capabilities of its own, while Sony, which makes the PlayStation 4, currently lets people stream older games through a subscription service.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the conference.

Traditionally, game publishers pay a percentage of sales to have their wares playable on consoles. Google could choose to take a smaller fee for games sold or accessed through Stadia, possibly lowering prices for consumers, analysts say. Console games today generally cost about $60 each.

“Every console cycle you have to win over your audience,” Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey said. “If there’s a viable streaming service that’s easier and cheaper than a console, people are going to take a hard look at it.”

The proof will be when everyday gamers get a chance to play. Mr. O’Shea was skeptical Stadia — or any cloud gaming service — could handle the volume of data generated by complex multiplayer games like “Fortnite.”

Google didn’t say whether it would charge players a fee to access Stadia. It also didn’t talk about whether it might one day offer a monthly subscription to access a buffet of games — a move many on Wall Street and in the industry were anticipating. Its competitors all offer subscription plans to games and services.

The studio behind the hit shooter franchise Doom said it planned to bring an instalment to the service. Google said it would launch its own studio for creating games, led by Jade Raymond, known for her work on “Assassin’s Creed.”

“The differentiator is going to be who has the best content, as it’s always been,” BTIG analyst Brandon Ross said. “You need the third-party tent poles and then you stand out with your own must-have exclusive content.”

Google plans to sell its own video game controller and said Stadia will support some existing controllers. On stage, Google executive Phil Harrison, who previously worked at Microsoft and Sony, touted the ease with which players using a Stadia controller would share gameplay with individuals, groups or more widely.

With cloud gaming, the hard work of generating a game’s visuals and audio is done on remote servers and then piped over the internet to the player’s screen, no pricey machine required. Google said it worked with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to create a customised graphics processing unit for Stadia.

But streaming games that boast rich graphics or scores of people playing at the same time is tricky without some slowdown in performance commonly known as lag — an absolute no for gamers.

That makes cloud providers such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which have spent billions of dollars dotting the globe with servers, are suited to game streaming. Analysts say Google’s move could expand the industry by luring new players who don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars for hardware.

Google said Games will run at up to 4K resolutions with HDR, and at 60 frames a second, — quality and speed that should satisfy the most hard-core gamer.

Google began publicly testing Stadia last fall, when it was known as “Project Stream,” inviting people with high-speed internet access to play Ubisoft Entertainment SA’s newest Assassin’s Creed game through a Chrome browser.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at [e-mail]

Google Vice President Majd Bakar speaks on-stage during the annual Game Developers Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco, California on March 19, 2019. - Google set out to disrupt the world of video games with a Stadia platform aimed at putting its massive data center power in game maker's hands and letting people play blockbuster titles from any device they wish. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)