The best thing to come out of Google Stadia will live on after the service dies

Date:
Mon, 16 Jan 2023 15:31:36 +0000

Description:
The Google Stadia controller will live on after the cloud gaming service is shut down, thanks to a self-serve tool.

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While gaming service Stadia shuts down on January 18, Google has announced plans to keep its controller alive. It may not seem like much in light of a whole catalog of cloud streaming games becoming inaccessible, but the controller really was the quiet highlight of Googles first major step into gaming.

While its not revealed the full details yet, Google said on Twitter that it will be releasing a self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections on your Stadia Controller . Google has promised to share the specifics in time for
the shutdown.

Currently, the Stadia gamepad can only connect to Googles platform. Until these recently announced plans, when the service shuts down on January 18,
the controller would have become a useless hunk of plastic, nickel, and silicon destined for landfill. Now it appears you will be able to use the controller with other Bluetooth-enabled devices PC and Android, most likely; maybe Apple devices and even the PS5 , Xbox Series X |S, and Nintendo Switch
. We've also got Bluetooth news: next week we'll be releasing a self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections on your Stadia Controller. We'll share details here on release. pic.twitter.com/6vYomngfmA January 13, 2023 See more Beginning of the end (Image credit: Google)

In a post , last September, Stadias general manager Phil Harrison announced that: while Stadia 's approach to streaming games for consumers was built on
a strong technology foundation, it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected so weve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service..

Google appeared to have the money to ride out its stumbling infant years

The news came out of the blue, not because Stadia had been a roaring success but because Google appeared to have the money to ride out its stumbling
infant years. Perhaps Google could have made Stadia a success just through sheer bullheadedness, as Epic has done with the Epic Games Store. Instead, in the face of competition such as Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia
GeForce Now , Google chose to shut up shop.

Harrison also confirmed in the post that Google would refund all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.

Other good news for players was that games like Orcs Must Die 3, which had originally launched as a Google Stadia exclusive, had ventured onto other platforms, so we werent going to lose access to everything Stadia had
brought. Best of a bad situation (Image credit: Shutterstock / Yasin Hasan)

The device will become a strange ergonomic relic of the dangers of launching
a cloud gaming service

While it was good news Google wasnt going to leave Stadias early adopters out of pocket, buyers would be stuck with perfectly good hardware that wouldnt be usable anymore. As our own Rhys Wood put it at the time , Google clearly poured a lot of resources into researching and developing a controller for Stadia. It's all effort that now, sadly, may have been wasted.

At a glance, the Google Stadia controller doesn't look special. It has a similar silhouette to the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, or a slightly slimmer Xbox 360 pad. But, in my hands, the Stadia controller just feels... right.

It's a wonderfully comfy controller to hold. Its buttons and sticks are high quality to the touch. And I love the robust collection of shortcut buttons at the center of the pad that let you easily capture screenshots, access Google Assistant for voice-based navigation, and more.

Its excellent news, then, that the controller will get a new lease on life. However, I doubt Google will start restocking the gamepad to simply sell it
as a third-party controller. The device will become a strange ergonomic relic of the dangers of launching a cloud gaming service in competition with Microsoft and Sony. Into thin air (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Its great that Google could refund everything it had earned through Stadias early adopters, but it was under no obligation to make good

The slight rise and rapid fall of Google Stadia is a stark reminder that we have less control over the games we buy, as the videogame market shifts to digital-first. Its great that Google could refund everything it had earned through Stadias early adopters, but it was under no obligation to make good.

Google could just have easily switched off the servers and walked away, doing none of the work to make its controller usable on other services, or failing to work with developers to let players transfer their game save files from Stadia to Steam as it has done with Gearboxs Borderlands 3 .

Steam, the Xbox Marketplace, PlayStation Store, Nintendos eShop, and Epic Games Store all look too big to close down, but there is no guarantee that
one day those digital store owners wont hit financial straits and switch off the servers. On that day, you could lose access to every game youve bought over the years, with none of the security that owning a physical copy of a game affords. Although, admittedly, as games rely more on online features, even a physical disc doesnt guarantee long-term ownership of a game.

Well, this good news about the Stadia controller has really led me down a
dark and dreary path. What can I say other than hug your loved ones and back up your save files? For more technological misery read about the PSVR 2 backwards compatibility.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-thing-to-come-out-of-google-stadia-wil l-live-on-after-the-service-dies


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