Everything you need to know about Google’s new gaming-related announcement Share All sharing options for: Stadia: Google’s gaming service and hardware announcement, keynote, and details Today at the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Google announced Stadia, a new cloud-based gaming platform. Stadia is not a dedicated console or set-top box. The platform will be accessible over the internet on a variety of platforms: browsers, computers, TVs, and mobile devices. Google’s new platform will have its own unique controller, will allow players to join live games straight from YouTube, and promises some big changes to multiplayer games. Below we’ve collected all the news related to Google’s brand new platform.<doc-sep>Google made waves today at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco with a gaming announcement of its own: Stadia, a streaming game service. Stadia will launch in 2019 in the U.S., Canada, UK and Europe. Google did not share pricing information. Stadia's architecture uses Google's data center network, which consists of fiber optic links and under-sea cables that have supported Google searches for years with 7,500 edge nodes. At launch, Stadia will support resolutions up to 4K at 60 frames per second (fps) with surround sound. In the future, Google is promising 8K up to 120 fps. It will allow for cross play between systems, run on a data center with custom GPUs and work with a controller that Google is making for the service. Besides the stream you get, a separate one will be made at 4K and 60 fps to stream to YouTube. Google worked with AMD to custom design a GPU with more than 10 teraflops of power to handle the service. It will run on Linux and Vulkan and work on the Unreal Engine and Unity. Google said this is more powerful than the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (PS4) combined. Google's Phil Harrison, formerly of Xbox, took to stage to detail the service. Gaming and Streaming on Almost Any Platform "Our vision is to bring those worlds closer together," Harrison said of gamers, streamers and people who make games. But the ambition of the platform goes beyond streaming Assassin's Creed Odyssey, as the Project Stream test did. Harrison showed a demo where a user watched a YouTube trailer for Assassin's Creed Odyssey and clicked a play button in the trailer to get the game running immediately in the browser. All you have to do is click on the link to instantly start a game. He also took a dig at games installing slowly on hard drives. "A single creative vision and single code base can be enjoyed instantly on any screen," he said, pointing to laptops, desktops, TVs and phones. There is no additional box required. The company then showed a seamless transition from a Chromebook to a phone to a desktop and then a tablet and a TV over a Chromecast, all at 1080p and 60 fps. More than 100 development kits have been sent to studios around the world. Additionally, Google is forming its own first-party game studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment, headed up by Jade Raymond, formerly of EA and Ubisoft. That arm of the company will also partner with third-party studios on games and tech, Raymond said on stage. Google also announced an initiative to bring split screen to Stadia, each screen powered by separate Stadia instances. This could also be used to pull up the views of your teammates in squad-based games. Luz Sancho, chairwoman of Tequila Works, came on stage to discuss machine learning for developers. For example, Style Transfer can apply patterns to a game based on images fed to the machine learning tool. Additionally, Q-Games' Dylan Cuthbert was on stage to show off State Share. It shows states like time, health or other conditions that let you set up moments to share and challenge others. YouTube Streaming YouTube's head of gaming, Ryan Wyatt, detailed how streamers can use the service. Taking on Twitch, he said "YouTube is where people come to watch gaming." Streamers will be able to capture directly from Stadia. Additionally, Stadia's new Crowd Play button will let YouTube creators generate lobbies for games to play with YouTubers. Also with YouTube, players will be able to ask the Google Assistant (with a button on the Stadia Controller) for help, which will bring up YouTube clips of how to beat certain puzzles. The Stadia Controller You can use your current fpUSB controller, but Google will have its own: The Stadia Controller. It looks like a mix between a PS4 and Xbox One controller. But it connects through Wi-Fi to the game in the Google data center to ensure the best performance. It also has a share button to stream via YouTube and a Google Assistant Button to use the controller's microphones to get help with features built by developers. Id Software took to the stage to show off Doom Eternal on Stadia. The game will run at 4K with HDR at 60 fps. Harrison showed how multiple GPUs are more flexible and powerful using the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark. Additionally, Harrison said Stadia will embrace platform play, including game saves. Google CEO Sundar Pichai started the keynote, discussing how gaming has been an important part of Google's research, including using AI, like Google's Deepmind Go, to play games, and using game-like environments in now-sister company WayMo, a self-driving technology firm. But now, Pichai said they're building a game platform for everyone. Pichai said that Chrome was originally designed for web application and that now it is approaching those goals. He recalled last October's Project Stream, which was a test of Google's ability to stream games at high fidelity and low latency. Games will be on Chrome, Chromebooks, Chromecast and even other browsers in time. "It was probably the worst kept secret in the industry," Pichai said. "Beautiful graphics really need high-end consoles or PCs," he said, pointing out that they don't have instant access. He wants to combine game players, people who watch streams and those who make games themselves. Want to comment on this story? Let us know what you think in the Tom's Hardware Forums. Image Credits: Google<doc-sep>
Google announced Stadia, a new cloud-based gaming platform, at its GDC 2019 keynote Tuesday morning. It’s a major move for Google into the video game business, which is increasingly building toward streaming as a solution. Stadia is not a dedicated console or set-top box. The platform will be accessible over the internet on a variety of platforms: browsers, computers, TVs, and mobile devices. In an onstage demonstration of Stadia, Google showed someone playing a game on a Chromebook, then playing it on a phone, then immediately playing it on PC, picking up where the game left off in real time. Stadia can stream games in 60 fps, with HDR and 4K resolution, said Google’s Majd Bakar. In the future, Bakar said, Stadia will achieve resolutions up to 8K and frame rates up to 120 fps. Google showed AAA games like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and id Software Doom Eternal running on Stadia. Google will have a hardware component, however: the Stadia Controller. It’s a traditional looking gamepad, with dual analog joysticks, four face buttons, and shoulder buttons. The controller will connect to the cloud via wi-fi, and includes a “share” button to connect to YouTube and a Google Assistant button. Stadia will be powered by Google’s worldwide data centers, which live in more than 200 countries and territories, streamed over hundreds of millions of miles of fiber optic cable, Pichai said. Executive Phil Harrison, previously at PlayStation and Xbox, now at Google, said the company will give developers access to its data centers to bring games to Stadia. Harrison said that players will be able to access and play Stadia games, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, within seconds. Harrison showed a YouTube video of Odyssey featuring a “Play” button that would offer near-instant access to the game. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the new platform at the Game Developers Conference, saying that Google want to build a gaming platform for everyone, and break down barriers to access for high-end games. Google offered a glimpse of its new gaming initiative in 2018 with the public test of Project Stream, a technology that made it possible to stream Assassin’s Creed Odyssey through its Chrome web browser.