Google doesn't seem to care very much about ensuring its upcoming Stadia streaming service is an attractive prospect at launch. At least, that's the vibe I'm getting from the all the news that's been coming out about the new subscription-based platform ahead of its November 19th launch.
Earlier this week we gave you the rundown on the 12 launch games coming to Stadia. Of those 12, one is an exclusive, while the rest are games most of us will have already played before. I'm not the only person who took a look at the lineup and wondered who this service is supposed to be for.
Oh, but it gets worse. In a recent Reddit AMA (ask me anything) with some of the team behind Stadia, it was revealed that the streaming service will be missing multiple features at launch, many of which were billed as crucial selling points of the cloud platform when it was first revealed.
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Stadia Product Director Andrey Doronichev confirmed that Stream Connect, a feature that lets you stream one player's game directlyinto another's, won't be arriving till the end of the year. He also noted that Crowd Play, which lets streamers play games along with their viewers, won't be added until next year.
We'll also have to wait until 2020 to see State Share, a cool-sounding feature that essentially turns save data in a web link, meaning you can pick up your progress with a game from any device with a screen as long as you have the link. In theory.
You'll be glad to know you're at least able to start earning achievements as soon as Stadia launches... but there won't be a system in place to notify players that they've done something until "shortly after launch." We'll also have to wait until later this year for local co-op to become available... a feature that I'm fairly certain is available with most consoles right out of the box.
In addition, you won't be able to share games across family sharing accounts until early next year. Oh, and the buddy passes that come with the Founders Editions of Stadia that give mates access to a three-month subscription so you can play together? They won't be available until three weeks after launch.
None of this paints a particularly compelling picture of Google Stadia. While I still maintain that it's a cool idea, and Google will be adding these features down the line, it seems to me that releasing with so many missing features and a fairly poor launch lineup is going to severely impact the platform's chances of success.
Featured Image Credit: Google