Google Stadia Won’t Have A Beta Before Launch

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Google’s cloud-based streaming platform Stadia is an interesting endeavour, promising access to all kinds of games on a number of platforms supporting Google Chrome. There are still concerns regarding latency, bandwidth consumption and performance but surely a beta will help allay players’ fears? Unfortunately, that’s not happening.

GamesRadar spoke to Google vice president and Stadia head Phil Harrison recently and he confirmed that a beta would not be happening before launch. Project Stream did take place last year, showcasing the potential of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey running in a Chrome browser, but that was for a limited number of people. Harrison states that, “It was unfortunate that we only ran the Project Stream test in the US, and even then it was only a relatively small subset of players, but you’ve all experienced it for yourselves and you know it works.”

However, Project Stream wasn’t available in several territories that Stadia will be launching in. Wouldn’t a separate test at least make sense in that regard? The response: “Geographically, the US is the most complex place to test; just because of the size of the country. And actually, Europe – and particularly the UK – are much… relatively, they are relatively easier to launch. So we are not going to do another test in the UK or Europe. If we had time we probably would have done so, but we don’t need to.”

As for why that’s not happening, Harrison said, “Just in terms of the scheduling of building out our data centres. The US schedule was started first and came online first, and the UK/European one came online second. It was just a sequencing of geographies and there was no intention to the meaning of that.”

Google Stadia will launch in November for 14 countries including the United States of America, Canada, Denmark, United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden. Access will initially be restricted to a Stadia Pro subscription, which costs $10 per month, but a free tier will be available in 2020. Unfortunately, if you want to play games on the service, you’ll need to purchase them separately or avail of services like Uplay+.



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Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://gamingbolt.com/google-stadia-wont-have-a-beta-before-launch

Comments

"Google Stadia Won’t Have A Beta Before Launch" :: Login/Create an Account :: 7 comments

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TOXICPosted:

Dont make sense if you ask me, not a fan of this at all.

MazePosted:

An official beta that is... it has been tested in a beta like setting.
Can't wait to see how this pays off for google, my
Hopes aren't high.

AnimePosted:

They all ready have done a lot of testing on it to.

VHzPosted:

I think a beta would be a good idea. I probably won't be buying into anything that isn't fully reviewed. Xbox one was extremely buggy at launch and had so many issues. Google should learn from this.

ChrisPosted:

KyloCrux Hard launch, kind of ballsy but I like it. Hope to see it do well.


It's not a hard launch. The hardware was tested during project stream.

ZydrinPosted:

Hard launch, kind of ballsy but I like it. Hope to see it do well.

ChrisPosted:

The Beta was project stream.