Thread by @larsiusprime

"If you could use Stadia as an extension of your current gaming platforms... that would be pretty cool. Stadia is not that."

But, XCloud *is*. Google put all their eggs in this one basket, Microsoft positions it as a value-add.

forbes.com/sites/paultass…

I've read several reviews now and the consensus seems to be:

1) Reduces loading times, often by a lot!
2) Under optimal conditions, has more lag and lower image quality
3) Under merely good conditions is intermittently frustrating
4) Under average conditions is unplayable

And that's without considering the fundamental flaws in the business model (subscribe THEN buy full priced games) and the lack of guaranteed, no-extra-effort-for-the-devs, cross-save with your existing game platform that you also own the game on.

Basically, the one single competitive differentiator Stadia potentially had was technical expertise with cloud, and it looks like that's not counting for much here.

MS has them beat on every other single point, and it's arguable MS can challenge them on technical matters, too.

Also, for Stadia to succeed at all, the cloud+subs model has to catch fire and take root.

MS has all the time in the world to slowly improve cloud+subs on top of their existing service as value add, and slowly lock people further in to their ecosystem.

For the record, I'm no MS fanboy. Quite the contrary. I'm just trying to make accurate predictions about who's going to win this fight, and I have every reason to believe it's MS.

Solid differentiator vs. Playstation with the upcoming console generation shift, too.

The other challenge with this sort of thing is that Stadia undoubtedly requires a lot of hands-on custom programming from developers with what is surely a clunky v1.0 SDK. Devs are a skittish bunch, unless you're shoveling sacks of money at them they'll leave and not come back.

Google certainly HAS that kind of cash, should they choose to deploy it.

The next challenge is, Stadia, on some narrow measures (load times in particular), seems to be better than current gen consoles.

But NEXT GEN is riiiight around the corner.

Next gen consoles by all accounts are going to be default backwards compatible and much more powerful.

Even granting that Stadia could magically conjure their target image quality under all conditions... how will it compare with next gen?

Another biiig concern is the recommendation to plug it directly into LAN. Sorry to break it to you but the average customer is going to be playing this over Wi-Fi.

Maybe google has some special sauce up their sleeve yet to be revealed, but this looks like a rocky launch and essentially exactly what I expected.

I'm updating my betting odds. I'll peg my certainty around 1:10 odds this thing is cancelled within 3 years. (IE if I was a betting man I'd be willing to risk a $100 gain if I'm right against a $1000 loss if I'm wrong).