Google Stadia Premiere Edition - White

Product Information

It also appears to be a no-strings-type situation with the only catch being the need to sign up for a month of Stadia Pro, but there’s a one-month free trial available to those users anyway.

USB: USB-C port for charging, wired gameplay, and accessories such as USB-C headsets. HID-compliant Stepping down from a hardwired connection to a dual-band 5GHz connection, Stadia still held up immensely well with only small issues in the audio impairing an otherwise flawless performance. If you're a Stadia Pro member, the available games change month-to-month, but you can claim a game and keep it as long as you keep your subscription. If you cancel your subscription, you'll be able to play that game until the remainder of subscription period runs out - and if you re-up your Stadia Pro down the line, you'll get access to those games again.Unsurprisingly for a service that's closed down, Google Stadia hardware sales have been suspended. You also can't buy games, new controllers (without going second-hand) or a Stadia Pro subscription, either. Google Stadia is available to buy right now, but only in 14 territories including the UK, US and Canada. Only the Pro Stadia subscription is available from launch though, with the Base (free) subscription launching at a later date in 2020. Google Stadia is the name of Google's former game-streaming service, as well as the name of the storefront from which you’ll buy games. Anything you bought was yours to keep, and you'd likely have paid full price for all the games you'd find on the Stadia store. However, if you're already invested in Stadia, any existing games you own will no longer be accessible.

Since launch, Google added over 100 new titles to the library. What that tells us is that Google has the power and budget to drop a whole bunch of new games in the same way that Microsoft does with Xbox Game Pass but, also like Game Pass, the well of content will always be limited when compared to other services like Steam that are much less of a walled garden and are entirely more community-driven. The Stadia Premiere Edition will cost €129.00 in Europe, with UK, US, and CAD pricing to be announced once the Founders Edition bundle sells out in those territories. To secure yourself the bundle, you'll want to head over to the Google Store. At one time, you could only access Stadia through a Stadia Pro subscription, but that requirement has since been lifted. You're now allowed to use Stadia for free. In fact we even saw free demos periodically that you can try at no cost. Yes, but the free options have changed. In April 2020, Google Stadia offered a free option to anyone who signed up - two complimentary months of Stadia Pro and all the free games that come with it. If you already had a Stadia Pro subscription, your next two months are on Google. Bear in mind the Xbox One X, the most powerful console on the market currently, can only muster 6 teraflops. It’s hard to get a handle on exactly how well it’ll perform based on this, seeing as teraflops don’t really indicate performance, but it shows that there’s some serious grunt going on behind the scenes.Again, there was a minor delay when the game is buffering at the very beginning and we did notice a small half-second delay between an on-screen action (like firing a gun) to the sound effect actually playing on the TV, but there was no impact on the gameplay.

There are plenty of titles available on Google Stadia, spanning a range of genres. These include shoot 'em-ups like Red Dead Redemption 2, Superhot and Doom Eternal, sports sims like NBA 2K20 and MotoGP 20, and beat 'em-ups like Mortal Combat 11 and RPGs like Octopath Traveler. While Google is clear that Stadia itself is not a box (“the data centre is your platform”), the company has made a custom gamepad for it. At a glance, it looks a bit like an Xbox pad has lost a bit of weight, but Google highlights two important buttons that hint at where it seems to see Stadia as going in the long term. The capture button instantly shares with YouTube via a live stream, while the Google Assistant button opens a built-in microphone for assistance and special features within games.

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As tempting as the deal is, this is probably a sign that things aren’t going too well for the cloud-based gaming platform. Google will be hoping getting the hardware into more people’s hands will help to boost adoption. The ever-growing library of Google Stadia games is impressive, especially considering that you don't need a console or powerful PC to enjoy these contemporary games. Both the signup and streaming service are activated through the Google Stadia app on Android and iOS. Once you’re logged in, you can then either Cast a game from the app to your Chromecast Ultra that comes with either of the two editions or go to Stadia.com to start streaming to your PC. Google Stadia is set to launch this November but a solid date is yet to be confirmed. When pressed, a Google rep told me that it would be ready to "share a specific date soon" and that we will "have to wait to see why" we haven't received that information already. Google also confirmed that the Stadia Premiere Edition will ship shortly after the Founders Edition bundle – giving Founders the opportunity to secure their Stadia Name – and that the Premiere Edition bundle will be the "the new version of Stadia that we're going to have for the foreseeable future". Cloud gaming, or streaming games without the need for physical copies, renders games on a remote server instead of your local device. That game is then streamed to your device while your input on the controller (or mouse and keyboard) is sent to the server.You can use touch controls on an tablet or mobile phone.

In the future, it should let you pull up videos while you're gaming, so you can watch a walkthrough guide on how to complete a certain part without even leaving the game. Neat.

Google Stadia alternatives

Keep in mind that if you do not want the Stadia Pro subscription after the month ends, you'll need to cancel, so set a reminder in your phone!