[HN Gopher] Google announces update to unlock Stadia controllers...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Google announces update to unlock Stadia controllers to work with
       other devices
        
       Author : anderspitman
       Score  : 276 points
       Date   : 2023-01-15 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (community.stadia.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (community.stadia.com)
        
       | drusepth wrote:
       | The Stadia controller is/was my favorite controller of any recent
       | consoles (with my next-fave being maybe a PS1 variant). I've been
       | using it wired with looong cords on other platforms because it
       | just feels so good in hand. Very, very happy to hear this news.
       | It'll be nice to go back to wireless.
        
       | ChildOfChaos wrote:
       | Still been playing stadia all this week and will continue until
       | it closes, such a shame, nothing like the service!
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | ...they weren't already? Is there a long German word that means
       | "when a company lowers your opinion of them by announcing
       | something you thought they were already doing"?
        
       | deafpolygon wrote:
       | More than likely, and knowing Google.. having it connect via WiFi
       | meant that the controller can probably collect some form of
       | telemetry on its users. Now that it's being shuttered, they can
       | "remove" ('unlock') this feature.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | What does that mean for a game service where everything runs
         | entirely on Google's servers?
        
           | josefx wrote:
           | A reduced need to send the Google street view team war
           | driving in the future?
        
       | RobotToaster wrote:
       | Nice of them to do that at least. It's a shame they're not open
       | sourcing it for third party firmware though, if it can manage
       | streaming games it must have a decentish processor.
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | The controller only streamed inputs to Stadia's servers. Your
         | PC / phone / chromecast was the device streaming the video.
        
       | admax88qqq wrote:
       | Interesting, I gave Stadia it's first try as a result of this
       | post. Tried the Worm Game. It confirms exactly my concerns about
       | cloud gaming in general. The input lag.
       | 
       | The classic "worm" game is timing sensitive, gotta turn before
       | you hit a wall or yourself, but also gotta turn as late as
       | possible to ensure you don't leave empty space.
       | 
       | The input lag was noticeably bad, doing precise turns requires
       | correctly guessing the input lag and clicking the turn command
       | early.
       | 
       | I guess I see why it's being shut down.
        
         | haunter wrote:
         | I don't have a gaming PC or console atm so I can only use
         | streaming (Geforce Now and Xbox Cloud) and I notice it but
         | somehow you also get used to it like adjusting your gameplay to
         | it. It's really not that bad (and I'm nowhere near any big data
         | centers).
         | 
         | Anyways it wasn't the lag that killed Stadia but the
         | monetization: buy the games full price + pay a monthly sub too.
         | It's just plain bad. On Geforce Now you can use your existing
         | libraries (Steam, Uplay, Epic) and don't even have to pay if
         | you can stand the queues. On Xbox Cloud you have to pay a
         | monthly sub (except for Fortnite) but they give the games too,
         | pretty much a Netflix for gaming. Both has its merits,
         | currently I dig Xbox Cloud more.
        
           | ccouzens wrote:
           | The monthly sub was to get greater than 1080p resolution, and
           | some free games.
           | 
           | But a lot of other people also thought you had to pay twice,
           | which can't have helped.
        
         | ID1452319 wrote:
         | The lag on Worm Game is terrible. I've been playing PUBG on
         | Stadia all day with zero lag.
        
         | jolux wrote:
         | I've played input-sensitive games with friends on GeForce Now
         | for several months at this point -- no major issues with lag.
        
           | bobleeswagger wrote:
           | Unless the GeForce now servers were co-located to your local
           | ISP, it's hard to believe. Even then, you're adding
           | quantifiable jitter to the equation on the order of a few
           | milliseconds. It's noticeable.
        
             | Epuineeb5 wrote:
             | I played CP2077 few days after release date, no issues with
             | input lag. On the other hand my ISP had trouble to keep
             | stable 40Mb/s - so in peak ours it wasn't playable at all.
             | It was a bit surprising at first but makes sense - even a
             | second or two buffer for other streaming services is enough
             | to ignore variations in connection speed - but gaming has
             | no such luxury.
        
             | jolux wrote:
             | I mean, in the case of multiplayer probably a lot comes out
             | in the wash of optimistic updates and such, but it's still
             | very playable and I couldn't personally notice the lag most
             | of the time. Occasionally when my connection got bad it
             | would have issues, but that was more noticeable because the
             | resolution dropped significantly.
        
             | aaomidi wrote:
             | I've had the same experience. I could not tell the latency
             | for GeForce now, and I'm using a municipal ISP.
             | 
             | I'm not really a casual gamer either. I'm still surprised
             | that GeForce now doesn't have an app for Linux. I switch to
             | my Mac laptop to play stuff like Fortnite.
        
               | bobleeswagger wrote:
               | > I switch to my Mac laptop to play stuff like Fortnite.
               | 
               | Fortnite is about as casual as it gets. You won't rank
               | very high in a twitch shooter like CS:GO (or keep
               | consistent ranking) using a cloud gaming service.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | cloudking wrote:
           | I was skeptical on cloud gaming, but I also tried GeForce Now
           | and had a great experience. No time spent downloading and
           | installing, instant access to thousands of games, playable on
           | older laptop without fans spinning up. I do think you need a
           | solid internet connection for it to work well.
        
         | sidibe wrote:
         | It's being shut down because very few people used it. I think
         | most people were OK with the input lag.
        
           | msbarnett wrote:
           | You could equally conclude that one of the reasons that very
           | few people used it was _because_ of the input lag.
        
             | dijit wrote:
             | The major reason stadia failed was sentiment.
             | 
             | Why buy games full price? All my gamer friends say its
             | crap!
             | 
             | Google shuts things down, why invest?
             | 
             | The tech was pretty good for casual gamers, it also pushed
             | linux gaming in the AAA studios.
             | 
             | I think a lot of negative sentiment also came from gamers
             | thinking that Stadia intended to replace their gaming
             | setups.
        
               | abofh wrote:
               | I will tell you I 100% refused to buy anything from
               | stadia because I was sure Google would cancel it in a
               | year or two. You can attribute sentiment wherever you
               | want, but Google failed because it was Google, not
               | because it was a bad idea.
        
           | LarryMullins wrote:
           | Where "most people" is just the few people who actually used
           | it? So basically, most people who like [unpopular thing]
           | think that [reason that thing is unpopular] isn't a problem.
           | 
           | It didn't reach mainstream adoption because most people who
           | care about games didn't think it was a good deal and input
           | lag was a big part of the reason why. And people who don't
           | care about games... didn't care about Stadia for obvious
           | reasons. The target demo for Stadia was basically people who
           | have a mild interest in gaming but not enough of an interest
           | to already own hardware suitable for running games
           | themselves. That was never going to be a profitable niche.
        
         | giraffe_lady wrote:
         | I played 200 hours of endgame destiny 2 on stadia during the
         | pandemic so it's definitely not inherent to the platform.
        
         | trarmp wrote:
         | I've always wondered where that lag comes from, since I
         | experience it even when doing remote play on my LAN.
         | 
         | Like, we're able to push a lot of other things through the
         | cable in less than a few milliseconds. Is it the compressing
         | that takes up so much time?
        
           | foota wrote:
           | I don't think it's the throughput, but the variance. There
           | are so many places for something to go wrong between two
           | computers, so doing something that needs a very tight latency
           | budget is hard. Harder still when you don't have control over
           | any of the parts connecting things. In a DC, everything can
           | be built for qos and latency, but on a desktop you're using a
           | porbably garbage router with a home OS running a million
           | things.
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | I actually found the lag and compression artifacts between my
           | Mac and gaming PC (which are connected by cable to the same
           | switch) using the Steam remote play thing to be actually
           | worse than Stadia.
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | Isn't predicting the input lag like half the "fun" of those
         | worm games? My prototypical experience playing that game
         | involves tons of input lag.
        
           | Underphil wrote:
           | Definitely, but only if it's consistent and predictable.
        
           | Scalene2 wrote:
           | Only if the input lag is static and not dynamic.
        
       | LarryMullins wrote:
       | Weird, why were they even locked in the first place? I have a PS4
       | controller I connect to my computer; I never had to unlock it.
       | Was Google afraid people would use their controller to... play
       | games run on their own computers?
        
         | ChildOfChaos wrote:
         | As others mentioned, but to add a bit more clearer detail, the
         | controllers did not connect to the device you were playing on
         | i.e your computer/tv etc, they used wifi to directly connect to
         | the stadia servers thus avoiding an extra step and hence making
         | them useless once the stadia servers closed down wirelessly,
         | because they never worked like a normal controller (still would
         | work wired though)
         | 
         | The controllers did however have a bluetooth chip that was used
         | for initial setup, so you could connect it to the stadia app
         | and put in the wifi settings. This firmware update google is
         | releasing so that it will work as a normal bluetooth controller
         | using this bluetooth chip.
        
           | benatkin wrote:
           | So they did the same thing as Chromebooks - made it dependent
           | on Google software.
        
             | Waterluvian wrote:
             | What might another solution be that isn't inferior in terms
             | of latency?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | benatkin wrote:
               | To support both. To not build the tech equivalent of fast
               | fashion.
        
               | Waterluvian wrote:
               | That isn't sensible from a product perspective.
               | Engineering stuff for a peripheral "in case our company
               | fails."
        
               | benatkin wrote:
               | That's like creating clothes to only be worn a few times
               | because you're targeting people who buy lots of clothes.
               | A controller is an input device similar to a mouse and
               | keyboard and ought to support standards so it can work
               | with different devices. This "product perspective" seems
               | to be that of IKEA and McDonald's.
        
               | TechBro8615 wrote:
               | And yet they managed to add the feature _after_ the
               | product failed.
        
               | lolinder wrote:
               | Yes, because now they know customers actually will need
               | it.
        
             | dmix wrote:
             | The architecture makes sense if you understand how the
             | cloud gaming system is set up though. There's no general
             | protocol for on board contoller wifi/SOC->cloud gaming
             | services (yet). It's inherently a proprietary design.
             | 
             | It also didn't need a bluetooth chip but they added one
             | anyway. It wasn't sold as a general controller so I don't
             | really see the big deal. This is a nice good will gesture.
        
               | duskwuff wrote:
               | > It also didn't need a bluetooth chip but they added one
               | anyway.
               | 
               | It uses the same IC for both functions -- BCM43458.
        
               | IshKebab wrote:
               | Right, the direct wifi connection makes sense when using
               | it with Stadia, but why did they not let you _also_ use
               | it as a standard Bluetooth controller?
        
               | dmix wrote:
               | Having the engineers focus on doing one thing really well
               | is good enough for me.
        
               | sergers wrote:
               | Cause they were selling stadia.
               | 
               | It didn't need to support general purpose, they were not
               | looking to sell the controller for general use (google
               | terrible at hardware support).
               | 
               | People buying it knew it only worked with stadia.
               | 
               | For stadia use, it made sense and connectivity over
               | Bluetooth would have increased latency and complexity to
               | the cloud service.
               | 
               | Mute point now, but atleast they opening it up so you
               | don't have to throw the hardware in the trash
        
               | bombolo wrote:
               | > Mute point now
               | 
               | *moot
        
             | PhasmaFelis wrote:
             | From the other comments, it always had fully unlocked
             | wired-USB support. And they _did_ build Bluetooth support
             | into the controller, and released software to enable that
             | Bluetooth as Stadia was going under.
             | 
             | Still seems really weird not to enable it from the
             | beginning--what would they lose?--but the made the right
             | decisions during design _and_ at the very end, at least.
        
           | MuffinFlavored wrote:
           | how was latency? is this a common pattern? where the
           | controller skips the host console/PC?
        
         | yunohn wrote:
         | PS4 controllers also need drivers, they don't just "work"
         | magically.
         | 
         | Since they're just way more ubiquitous, the PS drivers are more
         | mature.
        
         | modeless wrote:
         | They weren't "locked". You could play any game with them. They
         | just didn't support Bluetooth at all. So you had to use them
         | wired, or wireless over WiFi (for better latency when
         | connecting to Stadia), but there is no standard for controllers
         | over WiFi, so that part only worked with Stadia.
         | 
         | I can't blame them for not wanting to implement Bluetooth when
         | it wasn't a requirement for Stadia. Bluetooth seems like a
         | nightmare to support. But now they can release this as an
         | unsupported best-effort update, and that's way easier. It
         | probably won't work with some devices since they aren't going
         | to test it extensively, but hey, it's free!
        
           | ThatPlayer wrote:
           | Another reason is that the Chromecast Ultra that shipped with
           | Stadia didn't support Bluetooth. This was before the
           | Chromecast with Google TV. So they had to make it WiFi to
           | work on the Chromecasts at the time.
        
         | lokar wrote:
         | It may not be locked as much as just not supported as a generic
         | bt controller. When using it for stadia it uses Wi-Fi, the bt
         | was just for setup.
        
         | highwaylights wrote:
         | The kit was being subsidised. At several points, they were
         | essentially giving away starter kits of controllers and
         | chromecast ultras.
         | 
         | I guess they figured it was concerning enough that people were
         | going to pick them up just for a free Chromecast Ultra without
         | also giving them a free controller for Steam too.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | Fun fact: I ordered a Stadia "founder's edition" at launch
           | for actual money, an order which Google later cancelled
           | unilaterally. A couple weeks/months later, they emailed me a
           | promo offering a similar kit for free (just pay shipping).
           | 
           | I've no idea why they didn't make money and had to shut down.
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | I got mine for free alongside a Chromecast Ultra after buying
           | Cyberpunk 2077 (which also got a 10EUR discount).
        
         | DistractionRect wrote:
         | More than likely it they used some kind of proprietary
         | communication stack for latency reasons or some such.
         | 
         | Other reasons may include:
         | 
         | - not having to deal with supporting other controllers on
         | stadia
         | 
         | - not having to support their controller on other platforms
         | 
         | Not that it's defunct, they don't really have to deal with
         | support aspect of things, and this is just a good will gesture
         | so the controllers aren't paperweights.
        
           | ccouzens wrote:
           | I don't think it was your other reasons. You could use other
           | controllers on stadia- they even made it a selling point that
           | the only thing you had to buy was the game. And when
           | connected via USB stadia controllers worked fine with Steam
           | games (at least on Linux).
           | 
           | Another possible reason is that it wasn't seen as a high
           | enough priority compared to other things they wanted to do.
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | > _some kind of proprietary communication stack for latency
           | reasons_
           | 
           | It was in fact directly using Wi-Fi because of latency.
        
             | LarryMullins wrote:
             | Knowing that latency was such a problem that they had to
             | take extreme measures like this to save even the tiniest
             | bit of latency really should have been the end of this
             | project.
        
               | mmcnl wrote:
               | The technology was actually never the problem. It worked
               | great.
        
               | lokar wrote:
               | It worked well for me, very few issues
        
               | justapassenger wrote:
               | Since when Wi-Fi is an extreme measure?
        
               | LarryMullins wrote:
               | What's extreme is having to connect a peripheral directly
               | to the internet because you need to eke out every last
               | millisecond of latency. The fact that they felt this was
               | necessary is directly related to the reason it failed;
               | because the whole system was inherently susceptible to
               | latency unless you lived very near to one of their data-
               | centers. The product failed mostly for this reason.
               | Everybody responding to me is acting like it was an
               | obvious solution to the problem, but it wasn't a solution
               | to the problem at all. It was an absurd bandaid placed
               | over a gaping wound.
        
               | Rebelgecko wrote:
               | I guess optimization really is the root of all evil
        
               | izacus wrote:
               | Or you know, they could just avoid a whole class of
               | compatibility issues due to not having to connect to a
               | local device (which could be any of the mobile phones,
               | Chromecasts, Android tvs or PCs with any of the four
               | major OSes).
               | 
               | But sure, tell us more with your expertise.
        
               | pythonaut_16 wrote:
               | "Having engineering problems to solve is proof that you
               | shouldn't try to do anything."
               | 
               | Why can't we just appreciate a creative solution to a
               | problem?
        
               | 8note wrote:
               | It's the most straightforward solution to the problem,
               | too.
               | 
               | Your local machine doesn't need to know the input for
               | stadia to work, so why redirect it there?
        
               | VectorLock wrote:
               | Also seems like a benefit for being able to use "any"
               | screen to game on. The screen doesn't need to know how
               | Stadia works or interface with the game controller, it
               | just needs to receive video and display it.
        
               | LarryMullins wrote:
               | > _" Having engineering problems to solve_
               | 
               | Stadia had a fundamental physics problem, not an
               | engineering problem. Their "solution" is little more than
               | a bandaid that highlights the fact that the problem
               | exists.
        
           | water-your-self wrote:
           | >proprietary communication stack for latency reasons.
           | 
           | How would it being proprietary reduce latency? That mostly
           | sounds anticompetitive to me
        
             | sudosysgen wrote:
             | They connect directly to the Stadia servers over WiFi.
        
             | aaronax wrote:
             | In general, it would be because they can skip "things" that
             | are required by a standard to support a wide variety of use
             | cases, yet unnecessary for their specific use case. Skipped
             | steps plausibly leads to higher performance.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | And specifically because they can skip entire components.
               | 
               | Controller -> Stadia device -> router -> Stadia
               | 
               | is a helluva lot slower than
               | 
               | Controller -> router -> Stadia
               | 
               | And also drastically simplified the "Stadia runs on all
               | kinds of devices" requirements.
               | 
               | It seems like a smart architectural decision.
        
               | Nullabillity wrote:
               | On the other hand, you're now stuck on wi-fi even when
               | the client device is wired. And you've made the setup
               | process a lot more complicated.
        
             | simonjgreen wrote:
             | There was no open format in place, it was pretty uncharted
             | territory to have your console controller talk direct to a
             | cloud game service
        
         | waboremo wrote:
         | Two things: They were never locked the same way your PS4 wasn't
         | you could connect it wired and use it just fine as a regular
         | controller. The second thing is that the stadia controllers
         | used wifi as their source of connection over bluetooth, for
         | various reasons Google said it allowed better latency with how
         | they set up stadia.
         | 
         | So they're adding the ability to connect from bluetooth with
         | this. In the same way before Sony added driver support to
         | Dualshock controllers on PC, you couldn't use them wirelessly.
         | They're not really "locked" more than the bluetooth support
         | just wasn't there.
        
           | LarryMullins wrote:
           | > _So they 're adding the ability to connect from bluetooth
           | with this. In the same way before Sony added driver support
           | to Dualshock controllers on PC, you couldn't use them
           | wirelessly._
           | 
           | I only use it on Linux, and I suspect Sony didn't contribute
           | the driver I use. Actually, I don't think PS4 controllers
           | work wired at all, I believe they always use bluetooth and
           | the wire is only for charging. AFAIK anyway.
           | 
           | Very odd that they decided to use wifi instead of bluetooth
           | initially. Between this and the time they spent writing yet
           | another file transfer tool, I'm getting the impression that
           | Stadia was a very unfocused project, trying to do things
           | differently (resume driven development?) when they should
           | have been using off-the-shelf solutions and standard
           | approaches for everything possible.
        
             | mjg59 wrote:
             | The controller communicated directly with Stadia, avoiding
             | the latency of having to push it through your machine's
             | input stack and only then sending it to the servers.
        
             | jeroenhd wrote:
             | The PlayStation controller driver was contributed to the
             | Linux kernel by Sony: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Sony-
             | HID-PlayStation-PS5
             | 
             | There are alternative drivers out there (for use with
             | knockoff controllers that try to replicate the offical
             | device IDs, for example), but if you haven't done anything
             | special you're probably using the Sony driver.
        
               | VectorLock wrote:
               | Someone posted an article on HN recently that said the
               | best way to detect a knock-off controller is that it'll
               | cause the Linux driver to kernel panic.
        
               | LarryMullins wrote:
               | I have a PS4 controller, not a PS5 controller. But I
               | guess they did this for the PS4 controller as well? I
               | would not have expected that from Sony of all companies.
               | 
               | Edit: As far as I can tell, the PS5 driver is hid-
               | playstation while the PS4 driver hid-sony. hid-sony has
               | had commits from at least one Sony employee since 2017,
               | but doesn't seem to have originated from Sony.
        
       | code_duck wrote:
       | Google is the Netflix of something. Like Netflix is now known for
       | cancelling series prematurely, for me Stadia was "that sounds
       | cool, I should check that out" and then it was cancelled by the
       | time I was seriously considering it.
        
       | ineedasername wrote:
       | Nice that they're doing what they can to not leave people with
       | e-waste bricks, but why would these be locked down in the first
       | place?
        
         | Tyr42 wrote:
         | They did not have firmware which could handle acting as a
         | Bluetooth controller. That's what the new binary you can flash
         | has.
        
           | ineedasername wrote:
           | Okay, I think i grok that. not so much locked down as they
           | never built the capability. Although they did use BT for
           | initial pairing with some devices so a certain amount of
           | functionality was there.
           | 
           | From that starting point, allowing it to be a normals BT
           | controller should require a minimum of additional work, but I
           | think they probably had a reasonable business case to _not_
           | do that:
           | 
           | We know they tried to implement to minimize additional
           | latency, so I'm guessing they really did not want people
           | using these as a general BT controller in case the user
           | inadvertently connected to Stadia in that mode, which would
           | have increased latency and reduced user experience.
           | 
           | Being able to plug in via usb for general controller usage
           | was fine because increased latency there was not going to be
           | an issues.
           | 
           | I suppose it all makes sense.
        
         | xahrepap wrote:
         | It's worth noting that if you plugged them in via USB they
         | always worked.
         | 
         | It's the wifi (not BT) connection that never worked off-
         | platform.
        
         | delecti wrote:
         | They weren't "locked down" really, they just weren't bluetooth
         | controllers; they connected over wifi directly to Stadia. This
         | isn't removing shackles, it's adding new functionality.
        
           | Underphil wrote:
           | But they clearly have Bluetooth hardware in them, which was
           | the commenter's point, I believe.
        
             | sp332 wrote:
             | The bluetooth was used for initial pairing with a phone or
             | Chromecast.
        
               | benatkin wrote:
               | And it couldn't be used for anything else because it was
               | locked down.
        
               | Hamuko wrote:
               | They could always be used as standard USB game
               | controllers. They just couldn't be used as Bluetooth game
               | controllers.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | izacus wrote:
             | So does your phone and somehow still doesn't behave as a
             | controller when paired with a PC. Someone needs to write
             | that.
        
       | wnevets wrote:
       | Google deserves credit for how they have been handling the Stadia
       | shut down IMHO.
        
         | mccorrinall wrote:
         | The current handling is what I'd like to call a
         | Selbstverstandlichkeit.
        
         | oritsnile wrote:
         | For sure, I've back the money for my Chromecast+stadia
         | controller a month ago, whit this update both will still be
         | useful, after the shutdown.
        
         | harrego wrote:
         | I think the team over there are proud of what they built, was a
         | lot of new ground so I don't blame them.
        
         | delecti wrote:
         | It makes me wonder if the higherups are using this to
         | counteract the worries that google will shut things down. I'd
         | be less hesitant to invest in their services for fear of them
         | shutting down if I thought I'd get my money back if they did.
        
         | freewizard wrote:
         | Agreed.
         | 
         | a lot of product sun-setting from Google and other corp in this
         | tech winter. Stadia is definitely handled in the best way one
         | could hope for, IMHO it should be a text book example:
         | 
         | - refund the purchase
         | 
         | - listen to the user community, and act on it to avoid creating
         | e-waste
         | 
         | - respect the employees and give them an opportunity to express
         | their love of their work openly and officially
        
       | t3estabc wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | russellbeattie wrote:
       | Perfect timing. I'm moving and just fished my stadia controllers
       | out of the donate box after reading this - another day and they
       | would have been gone. They're decent controllers, so it's nice
       | they haven't become yet more e-waste.
       | 
       | Next question is how good the Bluetooth chip is. The range of
       | speeds even for the latest chips is vast. Since the controllers
       | only used Bluetooth for setup, Google could have opted for a less
       | powerful chip to lower the BOM and they might end up not being
       | particularly useful for games over BT.
        
       | coziestSoup wrote:
       | Something I never understood - Why didn't Stadia push slow games
       | harder? Games like Civ VI or Simulator games would've more or
       | less hidden the input lag. Instead they seemed to be pushing
       | fast-twitch games in their marketing.
        
       | codyogden wrote:
       | This is exactly how Google needed to handle this situation, and
       | they need to be praised for it! The shutdown of Stadia was
       | completely predictable, but I am overwhelmingly surprised at them
       | providing refunds to users for games & hardware and going the
       | extra mile to ensure the hardware is not immediate waste.
       | 
       | As the cryptkeeper over at Killed by Google, I'm very happy with
       | the outcome for Stadia users (myself included). However, I don't
       | think this will move the needle of Google's 'killer' reputation
       | as much as people think given all the skepticism about how long
       | this product would last in the first place. The "death pool," and
       | the people who voted basically predicted the timeline within a
       | few days[1].
       | 
       | 1. https://whenwillgooglekillstadia.com
        
         | benatkin wrote:
         | Strong disagree. For many weeks users have been thinking their
         | controllers are garbage. They might still be. Let's see how
         | well it works. Even if there's compensation I don't like to see
         | stuff that's defective by design.
         | https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | > _For many weeks users have been thinking their controllers
           | are garbage._
           | 
           | They've always been usable as generic USB controllers.
        
             | benatkin wrote:
             | Wireless has been table stakes for game controllers for
             | years.
        
               | lokar wrote:
               | They were wireless from the start, wifi
        
         | DismantleMars wrote:
         | The irony is, if Google had made their plan for how to handle
         | end-of-life for Stadia clear from the beginning, they might
         | have got a lot more users.
         | 
         | I'm not sure if their strategy ever changed along the way, but
         | when Stadia was first announced, it was a purely cloud gaming
         | platform where you still needed to buy a license for every
         | game. Not knowing what would happen to my purchased games was
         | the main thing keeping me from trying Stadia - I'd have been
         | happy to use it if it was a Netflix / Xbox Game Pass style
         | service where you pay a flat monthly rate for access to a
         | library, or if it was clear that any games you bought would be
         | refunded if the service suddenly shut down.
         | 
         | As it was though, it seemed as though you could drop a ton of
         | money on Stadia games, and Google might pull the plug the very
         | next day, and you lose everything you just purchased. That
         | worry was the deciding factor for me to never give Stadia a go.
        
           | tdeck wrote:
           | Stadia required custom development work from game developers,
           | my guess is that getting them on board was at least as
           | challenging as getting consumers. It's a risk to tell
           | developers "we're already thinking of how to kill this
           | platform that you're investing in".
        
           | redonyo wrote:
           | It's problematic for a company if they have to announce their
           | EOL plans on product announcement to get interest from
           | customers. Might as well not exist as a company at that point
        
             | fphhotchips wrote:
             | It's bad, but I'm not sure it's _that_ bad. In B2B land,
             | loads of contracts have a code-in-escrow clause just in
             | case key people die or the company goes under. One of the
             | key attractions of Open Source is that if the people
             | building it die or don 't want to support the tool anymore,
             | you can keep going yourself.
             | 
             | This would not be that different, right?
        
               | rvnx wrote:
               | What's going to happen to all software updates and remote
               | services if Tesla goes bankrupt ?
        
             | waboremo wrote:
             | It's problematic for a company to have EOL plans not
             | because people will assume they will go out of business,
             | but because they might not be able to actually adhere to
             | those EOL plans resulting in a much larger mess than what
             | would have happened if they stayed silent.
        
       | jdlyga wrote:
       | The trouble with cloud gaming is latency. Most solutions now just
       | do a glorified remote desktop. It would require some
       | rearchitecting, but why can't a client have an ultra-responsive
       | frontend while farming out the heavy work to a cloud server
       | somewhere? We're reaching a point where GPU's are becoming more
       | and more expensive, so is a more distributed architecture the
       | next step?
        
         | leodriesch wrote:
         | So rendering the HUD locally and a 3d scene on a remote server?
        
       | harrego wrote:
       | The Stadia closure has left a controlled leak of fascinating
       | internal Google projects. First it was cdc-file-transfer, "born
       | from the ashes of Stadia," now it's the internal Worm Game used
       | for testing that "the Stadia team spent a LOT of time playing."
       | Love to see it.
        
         | tantalor wrote:
         | Not leaks.
        
           | harrego wrote:
           | "Controlled leaks," a provocative way of saying releases ;)
        
         | denimnerd42 wrote:
         | Hopefully more to come. They ran all the games on Linux right?
         | Linux gaming could take a step forward with the experience
         | generated at Google and other studios that were porting the
         | games.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-01-15 23:00 UTC)