Not surprisingly, Stadia’s launch hasn’t been nearly as smooth as Google probably would have been hoping it will be, and while there’s still plenty of time to improve the service – which is something Google seems to be committed to doing – as things stand right now, there’s plenty of room for improvement.
However, as per Raul Rubio, CEO of Tequila Works – whose puzzle adventure title Gylt launched on Stadia as a timed exclusive last year – is confident that things are going to get better for Google’s cloud service. Speaking to GamesIndustry, Rubio compared Stadia’s launch to the early days of Steam, saying that not too far off in the future, people will be wondering why anyone ever doubted if Stadia – and streaming as a whole – would ever take off.
“This is my personal opinion, but this is like the early days of Steam in a sense that this is when people were complaining that it took too long to download, and then the download would stop and people were [complaining] the price was exactly the same as a boxed game,” said Rubio. “It’s going to get better. In fact, one day when we look back, people will wonder why people were questioning streaming at all. I’m not talking about Stadia specifically. I’m talking about streaming in general.”
Rubio went on to say that he knows of several features coming to Stadia that haven’t yet been revealed that will “blow people’s minds”, and that though people are right to be “wary” of any new technology, Google is committed to making Stadia better.
“My view is subjective of course, it cannot be objective because I have been inside, and I know there are many features that are super cool that are not active yet,” he said. “So let’s have this conversation in one year I guess.”
“People are totally right to be wary,” Rubio continued. “It’s a new technology; historically streaming solutions didn’t work. I think it’s the time, in a sense, in that the technology is there and the audience is there, and to be honest the content wars are here… Google Stadia has a lot of potential, it hasn’t reached its full potential yet. I think that was never the idea with this small soft launch. I know that they are working to make it better every day. I know it’s going to get better, because there are a few features that are going to blow people’s minds.”
Just recently, Google confirmed that they had over 10 timed exclusives primed to launch on Stadia in the first half of 2020, while they were tracking over 120 games in total currently planned to launch for the service. Read more on that through here.