Why Stadia Will Not Impact PS5 And Sony Offerings Next-Gen

Google’s entry stands to expand the gaming market pie, not prey on Sony’s share.

[fiveby9]

I have a fiber high-speed low latency internet connection. I still plan to buy a console this upcoming generation. I'm all for competition but at the same time very wary of Google. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. "Come into my den" said the spider to the fly.

[rpvenom]

Same.. I have fiber high speed too and I'd rather game on a console versus streaming my games. Streaming video is way different from streaming something you need to actively and constantly perform functions and inputs.

[DillyDilly]

Stadia will work with your standard favorite BlueTooth Controllers on devices that has BlueTooth. No screen input will ever be needed

[Maybay]

There's a reason why people (like myself) believe the Stadia will impact Sony the most. Microsoft also has the pc market as leverage so they'll be more than ok (there was an article stating that over 800 million people use Windows an os platform).

Nintendo can carry their own gaming platforms by themselves with their own ip's. "Though the virtual Boy, GameCube, and Wii U were failures!" Yes they were, though the software sales for those systems are amazing when you contrast them against other failed gaming hardware. Nintendo had two pillars of gaming hardware they had to provide content for, so they stretch themselves out too thinly.

The reason why I believe the Stadia will eat into Sony's gaming market is, third parties. Microsoft and Sony are both heavily reliant on third parties. Microsoft understanding this, already made moves to counter the negative effect Stadia will have towards their gaming business (gamepass, xcloud, buying studious). Google has the money and can buy their way into competition like Microsoft and Sony does, by buying exclusive advertising rights and exclusives outright.

Honest question, can Sony support a system on their own without buying exclusive advertising rights to games and content?

[Army_of_Darkness]

@maybay.... Stadia will not effect Sony's ps5 sales. One is a traditional console that most gamers prefer and the other is a streamer that always requires you to be online to play anything.... Questioning Sony if they can survive without third party advertising deals is just ridiculous right now because for one, they don't need them as much anymore and secondly, did you not noticed the amount of first and second party game studios they have in their arsenal along with their killer IPs?! Sure google and MS may have more money, but it does not change the fact that they are both playing catch-up with Sony's gaming department here.

[IRetrouk]

Hold on, the company with the most hardware in homes right now cant support their own platform? And what does 800 million users of an os provide to Microsoft and its xbox division? Has the xbox to PC thing helped it grab any more customers so far? No, so whys it going to help them so much now? it's not helped in the 15 or so years they have been around so far has it. Are Sony not the only company to have every home console sell over 85 mill? Do they not generally release more games than both nin and micro?? Also are they not the only game company streaming right now? You mention gamepass, even though ps now is bigger, You then mention xcloud, even though sonys is already up and running, then mention studios, which Sony have some of the best in the world, no studio from Microsoft has done anything to the level of sonys devs, Microsoft has far less games than Sony, I will be honest, I've not seen as much crap wrote in a post in a while.

[Rude-ro]

@maybe
You just compared a computer os/browser to a Sony focused hardware and software that compliments it.
And said a computer os/browser competitor that will have 80% of the exact same offerings is a non factor due to most of those windows computers are for businesses.
I know this topic is not over math, but yours does not add up.
Microsoft’s biggest hit is on home computers. Something google is still used.
Google is used on most home computing be it Mac or Windows...
it is a direct competition to Microsoft due to opening up gaming to a lot more home computing choices.

[porkChop]

Yeah, Stadia won't kill consoles. There's always going to be a market for physical systems. It's just another option for those that want it.

[Larrysweet]

nope ps5 and scarlett is last physical there is period

[Baza]

Google believes streaming IS the gaming future. And consoles will die.. Google ain’t in this to be an option

[Dragonscale]

@larry, so what about nintendo then? And anyhow thats some crystal ball you got there lol, its almost like some people are desperate to get rid of consoles for some reason.

[Ju]

Google believes a lot. So, why now? Where have they been the last 20 years or so to show us how games work? Google believe most what they can sell their advertising to. They failed so badly with everything else (who has a YouTube Red subscription?) now they will change the way we play? With what track record?

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

@Ju, don't forget Google+, look how well that turned out, I'm surprised they kept the business version of it (my company invested it's functions heavily into it for some reason).

[sprinterboy]

"Come into my den" said the spider to the fly, love that.

[demonicale]

Yeah if I was 8 years old I would too.

[Tokasmke]

How much does fiber high-speed internet connection cost? Is available through Verizon Fios?

[Ju]

I pay $72 flat no limit with CenturyLink.

[fiveby9]

I pay about $45 /month no data cap for 300Mb synchronous internet over fiber. I can get Gbit but don't have the need at this time for additional bandwidth. I think Gbit is about $75 /month for me. The key is also low latency. So proximity to a datacenter with few network hops.

[proudly_X]

Google+ was an embarrassing flop.
Motorola acquisition did nothing to reduce sales of Samsung Galaxy and iPhones
Stadia will have little or no effect in the gaming ecosystem.

Money alone doesn't buy success, otherwise Mircosoft would have destroyed Android with Windows Mobile OS. They could have equally annihilated PlayStation with the XBox.

We have seen a lot of things hyped like ravaging inferno about to burst, but after a while. The gimmicks and flaws gives them natural death and Stadia looks like it's heading that way.

[porkChop]

"Motorola acquisition did nothing to reduce sales of Samsung Galaxy and iPhones"

That was never the goal. That Motorola acquisition really benefitted Google. They got tons and tons of patents from Motorola, and they kept all those patents when they sold the company. It was a smart move, even though it cost a lot of money. The long term benefits far outweighed the short term loss.

[sprinterboy]

I enjoyed Google plus tbh lol

[opc]

Last year the Google Play Store (books, movies, games, music) made 24 billion in revenue. That means they already have a ton of people tied in to their ecosystem. Considering this requires no additional hardware. If just a fraction of those people stumble upon this and are able to get a good connection... it might make them a good amount of money.

[Ju]

How much did Life streaming make? (YouTube Red). Guess they are successful without competition, not so much with.

[rainslacker]

MS made GFWL front and center and very prominent in Consumer level OS installs. You were prompted to sign up for a XBL account when you installed or started the system for the first time. Yet, it failed.

MS has the largest social network in the world with Live, which transcends the OS, is tied into every one of their products now, and dwarfs all other major social networks user counts combined in terms of sheer user counts. Yet, how many XBL subscribers are there? Even going by MS last reported metric, it's a pittance to that number. That's something they're trying to change, but how often do you hear of the virtues are cash cow investor reports saying that they made bucket loads of cash from the Windows Store?

Point is, while it helps to have a large number of people to put your product in front of....especially if they're engaged....it doesn't guarantee success. Google also has YouTube, the largest streaming site in the world, which seems to play a key part in how Google wants to market this product. But, generally speaking, whens the last time you heard of anything related to YouTube streaming or connections was somehow a huge boon to one of Google's other ventures? The only one I can recall is Google Plus and YouTube Red. Both of which were miserable failures....and Google in general has people's respect, because they used to not do all sorts of silly things which annoyed people.

Apple on the other hand came into the mobile market after some tepid success in the PC and Laptop market, reinvented the phone....or just copied what was there and made something that made people think they wanted it, and spent a lot less money doing so, relatively speaking, and revolutionized the modern age to the point that now everyone wants to do services to just get their cut of the take on the back end without having to do as much work in the process. Steam came into the market the same way. A small-ish company which wanted to distribute it's own products, cut out the middle man, and provide a product through means which didn't involve costly physical publication. They adapted it to a model where others could sell through them, which made their store more popular, and did a lot of the right things, and pretty much reinvented PC gaming, and made a lot of people very accepting of digital purchases, which was a pretty new concept at the time.

[rainslacker]

What exactly is google providing that people want? Games or streaming?

Google is focusing on the wrong thing here. They want to be the so called Netflix of gaming. They want this to be the future. They want to control that future, and be the biggest player within. They're jumping ahead to the goal, instead of providing the games. That worked for Apple, but Apple needed a way to deliver it's products. And here's the reality. Google doesn't have a product. They have a service, and they're using those services to sell another service. That service is to access the product. That product is games, but if they're not going to focus on making the games into something better, then what's the point, other than to just be the middle man?

Is that a good future? One we should relish, accept and be excited for?

At least MS is doing it more right. They recognize the content that's unique is what's important, which is why they brought up all those studios. But, MS still has a product to sell on top of the service. MS is certainly going the way of services, but those services are still tied to a product of some sort. Apple, and even Google can provide the service only as a storefront on Droid/iOS, but are they advancing the content that they curate, and are people getting those products from those stores because they have the device, or are they getting it there because they want the product, and it's their only choice? There are choices in gaming, and it's premature to assume that the larger gamer base wants to consume their games this way, and the casual crowd is way too unpredictable to even posit a guess on if they will buy in.

[opc]

@rainslacker

I think the biggest thing for me is that I know Stadia works, I've used it already. Google's beta last year let me play the new assassin's creed maxed out on an old computer. I put in about 80 hours on it. It was fantastic. After the beta, they gave me a free copy of the same game, and at 720p it doesn't play as well at as the stream at 1080p because I only have a GTX760.

I get that many people don't have the internet for this, but many others do. Right now, the only thing they have to do is get publishers on board and have a good price.

If they can offer a game like Dishonored 2 or Prey or Wolfenstein for like $15, I'm all in because my dumpy computer probably won't play those games that well, and I don't want to spend $400 upgrading my GPU and CPU just to play a handful of games. I'd rather just spend $200 on games.

[demonicale]

I won't be buying a new console, I'll use Stadia ... so I won't be the only one, so yes, it will affect sales of the Xbox 2 and PS5

[THC CELL]

One out of 70 million do some math

[Larrysweet]

it will

[Obama08]

Sure can't argue with that logic

[Donnie81]

If I can I’ll always buy physical hardware but I’ll give stadia a shot if it’s a decent value. We don’t even know prices yet . Everyone needs to pump the breaks a bit until we know that more about it

[Ju]

TBH. I am not sure. If Sony really can release a proper 10+ TF PS5 at the same time and they can actually improve PSNow and remote play, I'll stick with Sony. Interestingly I use Remote Play quite a bit, from my Pro. It does 1080p @ 60fps but still lags even with a wire (interestingly PSNow is smoother). But a Ryzen/Navi with a proper stream encoder in a PS5 (which sure will support remote play) should hopefully get away with that. Why would I compare that? Well, because if I am in the house and we want to watch a movie, I simply switch to remote play. It streams from my "personal" server. Exactly where I left off on the PS4. And you get the best of both worlds. 0 lag when I "own the real estate" and can compromise if needed. I wouldn't mind playing Fifa on PSNow, though - I would be curious how that lag plays. So, whatever Stadia is promising, I already have. I have rarely played outside of my own network, tbh.

[sprinterboy]

Hzd2, naughty dog nxt gen games, nxt spiderman alone is enough for me too invest in ps5 nxt gen day 1

[Eidolon]

It will probably also exceed the specs delegated to the host systems of Stadia.

[Gamist2dot0]

What? No "Says dev"? lol
Their 1st party games are just too strong for me to change/abandon, and I like the way they handle them - quality.

[gamer7804]

Not just sony, it's not going to impact any of the big three.

[Silly gameAr]

Most of the articles have been about how is Stadia going to affect Sony and Playsation specifically for some reason. I guess this is a response articles to those articles. But, it's gamingbolt, so who knows what their real angle is.

[THC CELL]

Because ms has a network they too blind to see sony has playstation now with over 300 patent
From giki and onlive

[Eldyraen]

Well, for one thing, Streaming in mass is probably a console or two generations away. Some will start earlier or at least try it out, but it’s not going to be some day one hit—or even year one imo.

The best they can hope for early on will be comparable to PS Now numbers, which is the leading game streaming service but still not hugely popular in the scheme of things. I’m assuming both Google and MS will probably do it better (in many locations due to closer server hubs) but still are years away from profitability after initial investment and r&d.

[tulholdren]

PS5 for me next Gen. Can't wait for the awesome exclusives.

[capjacksparrow]

It's more about the quality in cinematic storytelling that only Sony offers that reels me in. It's a must buy for me, everything else is a maybe until it proves itself. Streaming games via my other devices is cool and all, but If they're just games I can play at home, I probably will. I usually read while I'm out and about and game at home. Plus, it's not healthy to rage in public.

[optimus]

i'm curious to know what all these naysayers will say if SUPPOSE google invests in some triple A games from some major studios that currently develop on other platforms to make exclusive games for them, then what? suppose google gave naughty dog, or rockstar a boat load of money to develop their next game (or resurrect some dormant ones). let's not forget that developers have over 10 teraflops and 12gb of ram to play with (which can be scaleable). if these games end up looking and playing better than anything on ps5 or xbox scarlett then what? will people not be willing to give it a try simply because they don't want stadia to succeed? i think the mentality google has is, "if you build it, they will come."

[MrSec84]

Naughty Dog are owned by Sony, poor example, as Sony would never sell them and Naughty Dog shows no sign of wanting to leave Worldwide Studios.

[optimus]

who gives a rat's...pick another studio, pick insominiac then, the point is they have the money to get some major deals from some big time developers because a famous man once said "everybody has a price!" would it surprise me if Kojima decided to make his next game for stadia? nope. would it surprise me if a new spinter cell game is announced for stadia? nope. i'll be looking forward to it if it happens as the industry needs a good fire to be lit under it.

[sprinterboy]

They would have to pay Sony a boat load of money not naughty dog

[DarkZane]

"if these games end up looking and playing better than anything on ps5 or xbox scarlett then what?"

I am almost certain the PS5 and Next Xbox will have better specs than this.

[rainslacker]

I'd imagine you'd see the same disdain for the practice that we see now. But, unless we get a lot of Stadia fan boys interjecting themselves into the console wars, I doubt we'll see the defense of said practices. We don't really get this with Steam users now, although Valve doesn't pay for exclusives, and the games they do publish weren't expected or known on the console front, so a bit of a different situation. We may see some like we see between Steam and Epic now though.

As far as if Google should/would do that. Then, at least they are trying to make a unique platform, and not just be the middle man providing the service, and while I wouldn't care for them buying up exclusives to exclude others, providing unique content is what they should do if they want to be taken seriously by the hardcore community. What would be better is if they produce their own games, and stand on their own merits.

If the games look better then so be it. Xbox and PS4 games already look really good, and while they will be more power to play with, streamed 4K isn't any better than checkerboarded 4K, because that streamed image is going to contain compression, or else it just won't be possible with any kind of reliability. But, as we've seen, graphics don't always mean much.

Playing better though.....I don't see how the game plays being a function of hardware. Regardless of system, you're going to find examples of games that play better on one or the other. Just like how Sony fans may say that "Y game plays better on PS4", others are going to say, "X game plays better on Xbox". It's always been like that, and it doesn't really mean much. But one thing you can count on is that on PS5 and Xbox, or any non-streaming console, the game is going to play more consistently on the local hardware....and that is something that a streaming service will never be able to claim.

[Ju]

10TF and 12GB on the server will still not look like anything which is optimized for a local console at 12Tf and 16GB ram. We shall see. Also, this is a server - by the looks of it. There is no optimized HW in those google racks, While it sounds a lot compared to PS4/XBX it isn't against a PS5 and whatever MS is cooking up.

[Einhander1971]

If u don’t want a new shiny new console or gorgeous collectors editions. Then carry on with stadia, I will go with the first option physical products every time.

[Thundercat77]

This may be the first Gamingbolt article I find to be we written and analyzed.

"it is in the end only viable for people who have high speed internet, no data caps, and live near a data center" that exclude what? 75% of the gaming community?

"Playstation already has the streaming infrastructure and the Legendary IPs" that puts Sony in a very good position. While the infrastructure is basic as the article says, is better than having nothing. They wouldn't be starting at zero.

This streaming competition will be between Google and Microsoft. Sony and Nintendo are safe with their exclusives IPs but Microsoft is the one who will need to fight or they will also be last in this streaming market.

[rainslacker]

Even living near a datacenter, you have to hope that your ISP routes you the closest way possible. Sometimes you can see your internet hops go across the country, to hit a server down the street. It's not really that uncommon, as data gets transferred based on one's own ISP's access to the back bone servers of the internet, and sometimes those become congested, so they route you to an alternate path, and if that server has a different path to get to the same place, it will route you the way they see fit.

There are a minimum of 3 access points to get to the place that will send you to your final destination, but it's not uncommon to have up to 10 or more. Those three are usually always required though, and they are not always....or even usually the same three every time.

one can easily have great service one hour, then the next feel like everything is dragging. Then you get the attacks on the internet, namely DDoS, which can take time to resolve by ISP's as they reroute until it's blocked or stops. Overall, the internet just isn't reliable for consistency. If all one does is browse the net, maybe watch some YouTubes or streams some netflix, then they probably don't notice this stuff much....although I'd call anyone a liar who said they never notice it. Anyone that plays online games knows that lag spikes happen. It's unavoidable, and I'd say that it's so common that they probably have them daily, or at least weekly, depending on their playing habits.

[bluefox755]

I can't imagine anyone thinking it has a chance of competing with Sony.

[Dragonscale]

Seems there are already stadia fanboys lol.

[Traecy]

Agree.

[Jls1]

Own your games (Sony) or not own your games (Google). Easy Sony not to mention the games Sony will offer

[rainslacker]

Were people worried that Stadia would somehow impact Sony's PS5 offerings? Sony has been doing what they do pretty consistently for two decades now. Why would they change it up because Google came and offered a service which is like a service Sony already has? Even Sony's own service didn't change up how they handle their system, nor did it affect any of the 3rd party support they got, so what reason would there be for that to change?

If PS5 sells, it'll be like this gen, unless Sony just stops making a lot of good games, in which case it'll be like X1 this gen, but still get support. Even if PS5 didn't manage to sell like crazy, it's still going to get support from 3rd party, because it doesn't take massive sales to get that.....as evidenced by X1 this gen, and I don't see Sony dropping the way it handles its first party anytime soon.

About all that might change is how Sony handles PSNow, and that's if they feel the need to do so.

[Traecy]

Knew this already. Next.

[TheHateTheyGive]

gamingbolt really has a hard on against sony, I chose PlayStation for the exclusives that i get from the best developers in the industry, naughty dog, sucker punch, sony san diego, bend, and many more, i dont really care about 3rd party games because exclusives show what a console is capable of. my games im waiting for are days gone, mlb 19 the show, lou2. ghost of tsushima. I cant play them games anywhere but ps4.

Xbox on the other hand is so reliant on 3rd party games, so the new google console is really going to hurt them because they dont care about exclusives or 1st party support and stadia will go after them 1st because of that. xbox is easy picking for google,

[S2Killinit]

Not interested in Stadia or Apple Arcade (or whatever its called)

[SephirothX21]

If you want to know who's gonna win next gen, just Google it...

[sampsonon]

we need release dates today please.
start with Ghost, and end with The Last of Us 2.

[ILostMyMind]

Is not true. Each gaming platform affects others. They share the same market. But I believe Sony will be fine.

[Retroman]

"Why Stadia will not impact ps5 and Sony offering"

Ahhhh, No. Sony is the powerhouse
Water is wet details at 11

[AK91]

Not only will it not affect Sony but it won't affect Microsoft or Nintendo either.

[Tross]

The Stadia is a non-entity until it proves it can compete with the top dogs, so the alpha dog (Sony) should just focus on continuing what it’s doing.

[Mandingo2020]

The jig is up. No wonder Microsoft and Sony are offering deals on their online gaming subscription services.

[milohighclub]

It will impact them for the better, force them to make improvements.