I’m going to be honest, I don’t think Stadia will be a success. I pre-ordered simply because I wanted to reserve my preferred handle so it’s the same as on other networks (like Steam and PSN.) Apparently those who join later will be forced into a naming pattern like JoeBloe123 where the numeric portion is required.
Anyway, I dithered for a long time on whether I should order or not… because like I said, I don’t really think it will end up mattering in the end. I finally broke down once they announced the actual debut date, and made an order.
They have been surprisingly uncommunicative about the order, but they did mail me a link to check on it the same time I placed it. So I just checked that link, to find out:
Ordered Oct 14
Not yet delivered
Delivered by 27–28 Nov
Like WTF Google?! Don’t take pre-orders when you KNOW you can’t fulfill them as expected… So now I have to decide if I want to cancel it. I’m kind of hoping they’ll email me a code to reserve my name early, even before I have the hardware… and then I can reserve my user ID and then cancel the order for my hardware. If they want to screw me, I’ll screw-em right back.
The debut date is Nov. 19th. This was known when I placed my order. So it appears they took my money knowing they were going to ship late to me because they had deliberately over-committed.
So I guess either Google had a bunch of pre-orders get cancelled, or they subscribe to the “under promise and over deliver” mantra because supposedly my hardware will arrive today (Friday, the 22nd of Nov.) (Canada Post willing… they have a nasty habit of sending my stuff to a nearby post office instead of delivering it directly to me… if that happens, it could be Tuesday before I physically lay hands on it.)
I also received an email with the 16 letter/digit alphanumeric code invitation to create my account and claim my founder status as well as claim a game (although I found I was able to claim both of the initial two they offered, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Anyway, on the bottom of the email they state that if you return the hardware (they list the serial number of the controller they shipped) they will remove your founder status and convert your user ID to a non-founder version. So I presume that means they would change it from UserID to UserID001 or some way to append a number.
So if I want to have my favourite/unique user ID, I guess I’ll be keeping the hardware, even if I decide not to keep paying $12CDN/month to stay at the pro level. It will really depend on what kinds of free content they offer. Sony includes 2 mid tier games every month for their annual ask of $70CDN, so Stadia, wanting $144CDN, had better be regularly including some pretty sweet games. (It was never really my intention to have another monthly bill… so I will probably wait and fall back to the free tier… 4K isn’t that big of a deal… I am satisfied with 1080p.)
I remember when the Xbox One first released and the first impression of the console (and features) was very negative. People still thought that you could not use pre-owned games for the console years after the console launched.
With Stadia, there is a lot of negativity around the console and it is going to be very hard for a company to bounce back from. The industry right now is not ready for a “stream only” solution but it is ready for a stream as an option like Project XCloud. There is going to be noticeable input lag with Stadia or Google would not have come out weeks before the launch saying they are working on it with a feature for negative latency.
It was going to be very hard for Google to right this ship because they had a lot of challenges in the first place. They are releasing a console with games people already own, multiplayer games that have very limited people playing, games having input latency, etc… and on top of that they strip features a week before launch.
As far as my opinion for people who preordered not getting it on launch day, it is very unacceptable. You set a limit on the number to ensure everyone gets it day one and you failed.
So the hardware arrived. The setup was intuitive enough, I guess. (A lot of steps, it seems.) In the middle of all that I needed to get my WiFi password (which is long and random) so I went to my router WiFi page where they conveniently show the password. While I was there I happened to check for a router firmware update. (I’m having a problem with my router where it crashes every day or so, so I am anxious for new firmware.) There was an update, and I stupidly decided to apply it. This of course caused all sorts of hiccups because the router temporarily went down. Anyway, supposedly my controller needed a firmware update while the network was down, but it never actually did that, that I witnessed, and I don’t see any way to force it to check again. This led to all sorts of head scratching moments while trying to get started.
But wait… there’s more… I finally get everything all figured out… and get Stadia launched on my TV and select Destiny 2… and here’s what I was greeted with:
Well when it D2 is working, you’ll get 60fps vs the 30 you get on consoles. But even then, it’s 1080p scaled to 4K.