Tried Stadia today and closed my account in less than 15 minutes. Those triple-A games they advertise on the front? Well they aren’t available unless you want to purchase them. You get access to I shit you not like 15 games that are not titles I care to play.
It’s a big bait and switch as far as I’m concerned. Those triple-A titles might be available some day, but who knows when that day will be. I left very unsatisfied and didn’t even try streaming anything.
I don't know why you'd call it bait and switch. Stadia has always been "you have to buy the games separately" for pretty much all titles. That was the big knock against it at launch, and has been an impediment to its growth.
FWIW I consider Stadia and the ilk oversold to the mass market akin to VR. There may be a market for people who want to play AAA games, will pay several hundreds per year and yet have never bothered to pay ~$300 for a game console (tail end of last gen). I'm just skeptical it's actually as huge as it's hyped to be.
Well, I can't even go back and look at the original marketing now because when I do I get a warning that Stadia must be played on Chrome and to download that. Obviously I could go in private viewing or something but why would I even bother with that? It's so user-hostile.
But the marketing that I do remember that enticed me to check it out was that I thought that it was for streaming games. When I checked out the site they had this big list of games that it looked like I could stream. If I could only stream, say, 15 games as it appears to be why not just show those? Hmm.
I do think there's a market for those (like myself) who have a few games they'd like to play. Cyberpunk 2077 looks cool - I'll pay $10 or $15 or even $20/month to stream that (among other games) because my alternative is buying it for $50 and not having it run at ultra-max settings on my MacBook Air. Not desirable.
To your point that this was a knock against it at launch, well, yea. They have all this marketing copy that makes it look so cool and then I have to pay retail price for a new game. Why wouldn't I just buy a Playstation or use Xbox or Sony's online services? Like what value is $9.99/month for some lame games that I don't care to play? Pass.
This service doesn't address any market that I can see.
I find the marketing for the platform to be inadequate at best. It’s very much “stream all these games” - not as much on the side of “buy this game to stream it now”.
It’s a big bait and switch as far as I’m concerned. Those triple-A titles might be available some day, but who knows when that day will be. I left very unsatisfied and didn’t even try streaming anything.