Google Stadia

They're rolling it out over the next 48 hours, so you may be a day or so behind in the virtual queue.

I wouldn't get too excited. It's Destiny.

I'm enjoying Destiny 2 a lot at the moment. It's neat. I do the raids.

Welp, we all saw that coming.

Google have announced that they intend to begin "winding down" their game streaming service Stadia. … Google say that they'll refund hardware, game and add-on purchases made through the Google and Stadia stores, and that players will continue to have access to their games library until January 18th.

Add it to the pile. Least they're giving me money back for that Doom game.

Stadia could have been really, really cool. There were some incredible pitches for it before it came out but it became more and more conservative as the development of it grew. There was a lack of trust in developers, a lack of trust in their product and a lack of trust in return on investment. A shame, but not a surprise.

I’m selfishly hoping this increases the number of publishers willing to put their games on GeForce Now, which is a fantastic streaming service but limited in terms of its catalogue.

I can only imagine that this will have the opposite effect; if Google and its infinite money can't support this kind of ecosystem, can anybody? As a customer at least, I'd be very hesitant to buy into a streaming platform in the future.

GFN is a little different though in that it just plays games you already own, whether on Steam or Epic or wherever. So there’s no investment on the part of the consumer over and above paying the monthly fee to access the service. Publishers do have to allow their games to be played in this way, though, and some are more on board than others.

Sorely tempted to act on something I saw highlighted earlier today: jump on eBay and buy a founder's edition as cheaply as possible to get the 4K Chromecast. Hmmm.

Sorely tempted to act on something I saw highlighted earlier today: jump on eBay and buy a founder's edition as cheaply as possible to get the 4K Chromecast. Hmmm.

Reader, I did. £32 for something that goes for around £70. That'll do.