Google Stadia is set to kick off in November of this year and most people are pretty excited about it, while others are still quite skeptical. Even so, Google is basically only drip-feeding us with information as it comes, every few weeks or so, keeping the interest alive.
We now have somewhat of a better understanding what the service will be and what it will not be: to begin with, the ‘Netflix for games’ thing that kept making the rounds online is not a realistic expectation of what the cloud gaming service will deliver to its users.
Andrey Doronichev, Stadia product director, took to Reddit to clarify that particular misunderstanding.
“To be clear, Stadia Pro is not “Netflix for Games” like some people have mentioned, a closer comparison would be like Xbox Live Gold or Playstation Plus.” Doronichev explained. “The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, 5.1 sound, exclusive discounts and access to some free games. Roughly one free game per month give or take. Starting with Destiny 2 (yay!)“
In this case, if the Pro subscribers would want to add up another game to their library, on top of the free monthly title they’ll receive, they will have to pay the full price for that game – that is, aside from the $9,99 monthly subscription.
In addition to that, if the users choose to give up on their Pro subscription but return at a later date, while they will still have access to their library, they won’t find all the free monthly games that made an appearance while they were gone, in that library.
Stadia will also not launch with achievements either, according to Doronichev: “We’ll have something similar to other platforms. However, it will not be there immediately at launch. Will come a little bit later.”
Most modern gaming platforms see achievements a necessary part of the puzzle so it’s unclear at the moment how Google will plan to implement them further down the line.
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