The company was literally giving away Stadia Premiere edition kits to subscribers of YouTube Premium who signed up for a 3 month free trial of Stadia Pro (don’t worry, I’ll explain what all of that is). I like the look of the Stadia controller but looks are certainly not the most important feature of a video game controller.

Besides offering surprisingly enjoyable performance with little latency on our home network, the service offers streaming via phones, tablets, PCs, and Chromecast. He's also written for GamesRadar+, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade, and he has a degree in computer science he's not using if anyone wants it. Stadia is a streaming service, obviously, and therefore largely depends on factors like how fast your internet connection is and how far away you are from Google's servers.Also with this back view, you can see that there’s essentially nothing to grip aside from the too-short nubs, unlike the Xbox controller and the DualShock 4. Using a Pixel 3a XL supplied by Google for our review, we put the streaming service to the test using the absolute minimum specs to see how it would perform with a lag-sensitive game like Mortal Kombat 11 and while there certainly were a number of slowdowns that we’ll describe in a second, most of the time we saw no noticeable issues.

It’s hard to describe precisely what my issue with the controller is aside from simply saying it’s just weird and explaining as best I can why it feels so very weird and awkward. You can check out our full list of the announced and confirmed games, publishers, and developers set to support Stadia. On desktop you’ll have the option to find friends and add them to a party, as well as access your screenshot collection with photos of games you’ve taken. The gadgets he currently uses on a daily basis are the Google Pixel 6, Oppo Watch, Sony WH-1000XM4s, the MacBook Pro, and the Onyx Boox Nova Air. Originally Google Stadia was supposed to release with 12 games but, one day before launch, that number nearly doubled to 22 games with one extra game, Samurai Showdown, available for free for Stadia Pro subscribers.

More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds. I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to see which box I’d selected in the level editor UI, as the highlighted box is a thin slightly brighter brown outline against a brown box. While It is easy to get started with Stadia without any dedicated hardware, Google does sell a Stadia specific game controller, and a bundle that includes that controller and a Chromecast Ultra. Further, the Stadia controller just feels so great, and spending the extra money to have it is well worth it, to me. On the bright side, the Chromecast is still quite useful, although I'm not personally using it and haven't found someone to give mine to.

What Stadia promised (and mostly delivers) is a game-streaming experience that only requires the most basic of equipment: a Chromecast Ultra or your phone or your laptop, plus a controller of your choosing - either Google’s own Stadia Controller, the Xbox One controller or the PS4’s DualShock 4 gamepad. There are a few bigger name games available for free via Stadia Pro, but most of the games are smaller, indie style games. As of this writing, the only way to play Stadia on a TV is through a Chromecast Ultra and using the Stadia controller. Once in a while, he even digs out his trusty ol’ Gameboy Advanced SP to play the best game ever made: Pokemon Leaf Green. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories.From confusing initial marketing to staggered release dates, the actual cost of Google's streaming service wasn't completely clear for a while. The silver lining is that a slowdown like this, while annoying and potentially destructive in any sort of player-versus-player environment, really wasn’t so awful that it made us want to outright quit like we’ve felt in the past with other services. I had a game session completely fail on me once while playing, dropping me back to the Stadia home screen on the TV.

We also recently learned Google Stadia will have game trials after launch, while the service will offer ‘roughly’ one free game per month.

Google likes to say Stadia can be used anywhere and is promoting the rollout of 5G as allowing wider access to playing Stadia on the go, but with the current state of mobile networks and data caps, this is definitely a service that is more suited to playing on Wi-Fi. Because games are fully updated on Stadia's servers, you'll never see another download screen again. If you want to use a bluetooth controller on a PC, Mac, or Chromebook, it is as simple as making sure the controller is paried and turned on, and going to stadia.