The video gaming industry has always been fluctuating – like The Nintendo Wii was one of the enormous hits in its time; when more than 100 million units were sold. However, its successor, the Wii U, could barely sell 20 million units.
So, no one can predict how much successful a new game console could be. Recently, Google has launched a cloud-native gaming platform, Stadia, which is being considered as the future of video gaming.
Stadia – A Gaming Revolution
Google is terming Stadia as the ‘Netflix for games’, as it’ll be working just like that. For this reason, people are thinking that it can disrupt the current principles of publishing and distribution of games.
Instead of purchasing/downloading different versions of games to play on a local drive, people now prefer to play games remotely. With Stadia, people’s perspective of developing, selling, and even playing games will change.
On the launch of Stadia, Google unveiled a lot of details related to the business model and the no. of games available on the cloud. Google’s chief further claimed that it doesn’t need a console to work; just in the same way as Netflix.
Since Netflix doesn’t need a separate set-top box as long as the device is able to stream the video. Similarly, Google doesn’t intend to make hardware for Stadia. It’ll be more like a streaming service for the users.
Game Streaming is the Future
A veteran executive, Harrison, shared his views in an interview to The Verge regarding Stadia as a streaming service. He discussed how Google’s vision of making no console for the cloud gaming platform might trigger one of the biggest industry shifts.
As he worked with Microsoft and Sony, he’s of the opinion that the gaming industry remained device-centric for the last 40 years or longer. The games were either packaged on a disc or a cartridge or a tape they could be downloaded to be played on a particular device with some limitations on the specifications of the device.
But now, Stadia has enhanced Nintendo’s concept of selling its hybrid Switch console by allowing gamers to play games anytime and anywhere. Here the difference is between portability and accessibility. As the Switch offers portability, Stadia is offering broad accessibility. This means that the gamers wouldn’t have to buy any specific hardware to play their favorite games. And this will be the turning point to a gaming revolution.
At the moment, people are curious to know more about Stadia. They are still eager to know if cloud streaming of games without console could really revolutionize the industry. But it can be foreseen that if Google is able to execute it smoothly, cloud gaming would change the current practices of creating and distributing games and ultimately, the way of playing games.
