Google Reveals Stadia, Game Streaming Service Coming This Year

This year’s Game Developers Conference is currently underway and one of the keynote presentations everyone’s been looking forward to has been Google’s. During their presentation, Google revealed Stadia, a new way to make gaming more accessible to as many people as possible.

Google revealed that Stadia will be a service that allows gamers to stream even the most technically demanding video games to any screen, whether it be a TV, computer, phone, or tablet. During the presentation, a point was made about how Stadia will work on just about any computer or device, regardless of how bad its technical specifications may be, and still run AAA games at 1080p and 60 frames per second. When Stadia launches later this year, it will be able to play all games at 4K with HDR and 60 fps, and will eventually be able to play games at 8K and 120 fps, on any screen.

While Stadia will be compatible with any controller or keyboard setup, Google also revealed their own controller, which will feature a Share button that will allow players to instantly stream their gameplay to YouTube and a Google Assistant button, which will allow players to ask for help during a difficult section of gameplay they may be stuck in without having to pause the game and look up a walkthrough on a separate device. The Stadia service will also come with features like Crowd Play, which will allow YouTube creators to play games with their audience without worrying about random match-ups that might separate them, and State Share, which will allow gamers to create save states in games that they can share with their friends or audiences to allow them to replicate the exact scenario that the original gamer went through.

Google also revealed a new division called Stadia Games and Entertainment, which will be Google’s own first-party development studio for the service. Google will reveal more about Stadia this summer, including which games players will be able to play at launch and beyond. You can watch the entire keynote presentation below.