If you haven’t heard, Google Stadia is shutting down and closing shop next week. But before the never-quite-successful game streaming service dies, it has provided one neat (and free) little gift you can only play for a few days before it all goes offline.
Launched back in 2019, Google Stadia was a costly and massive investment from Google into the world of video games. Powered by the cloud aka a bunch of servers and off-site computers, Stadia’s big promise was instantaneous gaming on the go. No more updates or expensive consoles. And while it sometimes worked, the high cost of games, lack of features, small library, and internet costs ended up dooming the service. Sure, some superfans logged thousands of hours into it, but for most, it just wasn’t what they wanted or needed from a video game platform.
So it wasn’t surprising that in September of last year, Google announced the end of Stadia. In five days, on January 18, the video game streaming service will shut down. With the end so near, it seemed unlikely that Stadia would receive any new game releases. Yet, Google has published one final game. But don’t expect some big open-world RPG or remake. Instead, the final Stadia game is Worm Game, an internally developed title used to test Stadia long before it became a public service.
We probably were never meant to see or play this Snake-like test game as it sports fairly rudimentary graphics and kinda ugly menus. But in the final days of Stadia, it appears the devs working on the project were able to provide its community one final treat. Even better, anyone can play Worm Game as it’s free. (Which makes sense considering the Stadia store stopped working already.)
The game’s store page features this nice and touching description of the game and what it was used for:
Play the game that came to Stadia before Stadia came to the world. “Worm Game” is a humble title we used to test many of Stadia’s features, starting well before our 2019 public launch, right through 2022. It won’t win Game of the Year, but the Stadia team spent a LOT of time playing it, and we thought we’d share it with you. Thanks for playing, and for everything.
Is Worm Game some incredibly important or amazing thing? Not really. However, it’s still really cool to get a peek behind the scenes, and thanks to videos of Worm Game, this little piece of test software will be somewhat preserved for folks to look back at years from now.
In other cool End Of Stadia news, Google has confirmed that starting next week, it will start allowing players to unlock the Bluetooth functionally of its Stadia controller.
This is a nice way to make the controller—which has one of my favorite modern D-pads on it—more useful and easier to hook up to more devices. I doubt the devs who worked on Stadia for years were planning for the controller to be the only thing left of Stadia in 2023, but here we are.
Xbox fans have been waiting for a glimpse of a new, standalone Game Pass streaming device called “Keystone” since it was first teased at E3 2021. Now Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer may have just given it to them in his latest shelfie. It looks like a micro-Xbox Series S.
Microsoft has slowly been bringing Xbox Game Pass to more and more devices through cloud streaming. First it was phones. More recently it was certain brands of Smart TVs like Samsung’s. Earlier this year, the company confirmed it was working on a smaller add-on that people could buy to stream games to any display. It’s called Keystone, and so far Microsoft hasn’t shown what it looks like, possibly until today.
“Vault Boy left the shelter and stopped by my office to celebrate the #Fallout25 Anniversary,” Spencer tweeted along with a photo of a bunch of Xbox swag on a shelf. “Congratulations to the @Fallout @Bethesda teams on this major milestone for an iconic franchise.” The Microsoft executive has made a habit out of teasing upcoming reveals in the background of his pictures, however, and it didn’t take fans long to spot a strange-looking white device near the top:
It looks exactly like an Xbox Series S, only much smaller. A mark on the left could be an Xbox symbol while one on the right seems like a USB port. It seems similar in proportion to a Google Chromecast or Valve’s now defunct Steam Link, though it’s hard to tell based on the photo alone. It certainly looks a shade smaller than the Xbox controller just to its left. Notably, the Series S was first revealed on Spencer’s shelf as well. A response to Spencer’s tweet by the official Xbox account seems to imply it may be an older prototype.
While previous speculation was that Xbox’s Game Pass streaming device would be a smaller stick-sized dongle, the company told Windows Central in May that it had pivoted to a new “approach” for Keystone. “We have made the decision to pivot away from the current iteration of the Keystone device,” a spokesperson for the company said at the time. “We will take our learnings and refocus our efforts on a new approach that will allow us to deliver Xbox Cloud Gaming to more players around the world in the future.”
It’s still not clear exactly what the company meant by that, and it’s always possible that Spencer’s photo today was 1.) not meant to tease anything or 2.) was teasing something completely different from Keystone. Microsoft has also reportedly been working on a standalone optical drive attachment for the all-digital versions of its Xbox Series X/S. Both seem unlikely.
“It’s probably a mistake on my part,” Spencer said in a Kinda Funny Games appearance in July when describing the easter eggsfans look for on his shelf. He claimed there was no thought behind what appears on it during his video calls and other photos, and that it was simply a collection of gaming industry gifts and signifiers. The hosts were less than convinced.
Update: 10/10/22 2:58 p.m. ET: A spokesperson for Microsoft re-iterated that the device on Spencer’s shelf is an older prototype and that the company’s early statement that it had pivoted “away” from the current iteration.
Having a (relatively) small device that can play basically any big game on it is a cool idea, and that’s what I love about Valve’s Steam Deck. But the Deck can be a bit bulky, and its battery just doesn’t last sometimes. Plus it doesn’t work easily with Xbox Game Pass. So the idea of a new, smaller handheld dedicated to streaming Game Pass and Xbox titles sounds great! However, at $300, it seems too expensive in a world where the Steam Deck and Switch OLED exist at around the same price point.
Announced today by Microsoft and Logitech, the new G Cloud handheld gaming console is a small Android-powered device built around streaming video games. 10 years ago this would have seemed like a weird idea. But today, you can stream practically every game across most platforms with enough tinkering. The idea behind this new G Cloud device is to cut out the tinkering and modding and provide players with a simple, fast, and lightweight way to stream all the great games on Game Pass.
First, the positives. The new Android device claims to have an extended battery life, probably thanks to the fact it is only streaming games and not running them natively. It boasts a solid 1080p 7-inch touchscreen, built-in controls, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a button and stick layout similar to an Xbox controller. I also really like the look of the device. It’s a bit smaller than Steam Deck, which should be nice for folks who have smaller hands.
But here’s the problem: The price. Currently, you can pre-order the G Cloud at $300 which is pretty high considering this is basically a fancy Android phone with built-in controls, a bigger battery, and no ability to make phone calls. It does have support for the Google Play Store, so presumably, mobile games and apps will work on it. And being based on Android, it will basically be moddable from day one. But still, $300 for that seems high.
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And that’s just for now. Once it’s out on October 17, the price shoots up to $350, aka the same price as a new Switch OLED and only $50 less than a 64GB Steam Deck. Now, it’s true that the Switch can’t stream the entire Game Pass library, but with some tinkering the Steam Deck actually can, while also playing (most) of your Steam games.
When I first saw the G Cloud on Twitter I was interested. A small device dedicated to Android apps and Xbox Game Pass cloud streaming could be nice to have. But only for like…$200. At the current price, I’d recommend folks buy a new phone, an external controller for their current phone, or a Steam Deck instead.
Earlier this week, some folks checking Microsoft’s Cloud Gaming beta website noticed something weird: listings for games like Elden Ring and Grand Theft Auto V not only said they were part of the company’s Game Pass offering, but would also be playable on the cloud.
Here’s a screengrab of Elden Ring’s page, taken by @klobrille, clearly showing both the “GAME PASS” badge and the fact that it’s playable on the Cloud Gaming beta:
Listings for Grand Theft Auto V (which has already been on the service and left) and, weirdly, Soul Hackers, all declared they were now on the subscription service. Even weirder is the fact that none of those things had ever been announced, which you’d think would be the case given the prominence of both Elden Ring and GTA V.
There’s a reason for that, of course. Microsoft have since told Eurogamer that the listings were a “bug.” “We’re aware of a bug that incorrectly displayed some titles as available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate,” a representative says. “We rolled out a fix and this is now updated.”
Normally this kind of administrative, backend stuff wouldn’t be that exciting, but what got people interested here is that GamesCom is less than two weeks away, with Microsoft due to make a significant appearance (and a live presentation). And in June, Microsoft announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate users would be able to play “select” titles they own via Cloud Gaming, even if they weren’t part of the Game Pass catalogue.
Put those two things together and it seemed entirely plausible that Microsoft had simply jumped the gun on a couple of GamesCom announcements. Calling these listings a “bug” certainly seems to put a dampener on that enthusiasm, but GamesCom kicks off on August 22, just in case you want to keep an eye on things anyway.
Two months ago, Sony reimagined PS Plus, its longtime membership program for PlayStation owners. Now, it looks a whole lot like Microsoft’s Game Pass: For roughly the same amount of money, both offer access to a Netflix-style games-on-demand library. Obviously, we had to stack the two services up against each other.
Price
Game Pass is available as a subscription for console, PC, or both. The two separated tiers cost $10 a month. Xbox Live Ultimate, which joins the two and provides access to the EA Play Library (a similar games-on-demand service) and Xbox Live Gold, costs $15 a month. There is no way to pay for multiple months or a year up front at a tiered markdown (at least officially).
PS Plus is also available for a subscription, but it gets very complicated very fast. There are two new tiers. The Extra is $15 a month, or $100 for the year, and offers free monthly games, online play, and a catalog of on-demand games including some of Ubisoft’s library. Premium is $18 a month, or $120 a year, and adds access to classic games, game trials, and cloud streaming for most of the games in the library. That’s a huge price difference, and while PS Plus Premium is more expensive month-to-month, it’s actually almost 50 percent cheaper if you commit to the whole year.
Winner: PS Plus
Streaming
Game Pass allows for cloud-streaming, provided you pay for the pricier Ultimate tier. The streaming functionality is technically still “in beta,” but it is for all intents and purposes up and running. Microsoft recommends internet speeds of at least 10mbps for mobile devices and 20mbps for consoles and PCs. Based on Kotaku’s testing, it’s…fine? Despite cloud gaming’s huge advancements recently, streaming still can’t compete with downloaded games. The latency, however minor, is unignorable. As such, cloud gaming is best used for puzzlers, chill RPGs, light platformers, and other games that don’t demand split-second reflexes.
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Microsoft says “more than 100” games are currently streamable via cloud gaming on Xbox Game Pass, but more games are added every few weeks. Right now, the Game Pass library currently lists 381 games as capable of streaming.
Stray.Screenshot: Annapurna / Kotaku
To unlock streaming on PS Plus you need to buy the $18 a month tier. And even then, the streaming quality is nothing to write home about. At best, it’s as good as Xbox Cloud Gaming. Sometimes it’s worse. Roughly 320 games from the Premium library can be streamed on console or PC, and a good chunk of those are PS3 games and classics rather than the full PlayStation 4 library. For example, Marvel’s Avengers and Stray are available on console but not in the streaming library.
Most notably, you can’t stream PS Plus games to your phone. For now, the service relies on Remote Play, meaning you need a console to play on mobile and you must be on the same WiFi network.
Winner: Game Pass
Game Library
Of course, a games-on-demand service is only as good as the one thing it’s supposed to provide: games.
Right now, the Xbox Game Pass library has about 475 games, but that tally comprises the library across both tiers, including the 92 games currently part of EA Play. The main draw, of course, is that Microsoft puts its entire first-party portfolio on the platform. That also includes the major tent poles—like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5, alongside forthcoming blockbusters like Starfield and Redfall—which become available the day they came out. Third-party games tend to stick around for a year at most, though some, like Rockstar’s open-world Hold ‘Em simulator Red Dead Redemption 2, become unavailable after a matter of months. It’s unpredictable.
Halo Infinite.Screenshot: 343 Industries
The library also regularly cycles in third-party games and often serves as a launch pad for indie gems. This year alone, the twee Zelda-like Tunic, the snowboarding sim Shredders, and the puzzler-cum-dungeon-crawler Loot River all launched on Game Pass. (Here’s Kotaku’s list of the best under-the-radar games currently available.) Developers have acknowledged to Kotaku that debuting on Game Pass cuts into initial sales but is ultimately worth it for the tradeoff in publicity.
PS Plus Extra currently includes around 430 PS4 and PS5 games, while Premium adds another 395 from PS1, PS2, PS3 (streaming only), and PSP. While the classics are a nice bonus, the biggest draw by far are the PlayStation exclusives like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Bloodborne. Unlike Microsoft, Sony has committed to not putting its newest releases on the service day-and-date, and if Returnal arriving a year after release is any indication, it seems like a good bet that players will have to wait at least a year to 18 months before newer stuff appears.
There are plenty of strong contenders in the third-party department though. Games like Final Fantasy VII Remake, Prey, Control, Doom, and Tetris Effect are all present, as are indies like Celeste, Outer Wilds, Dead Cells, and Virginia. The library has plenty of diversity and was bolstered most recently from the same-day addition of Stray, which is already a 2022 GOTY contender. The Ubisoft component, led by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is also a strong compliment. At the same time, Sony hasn’t yet demonstrated it is, or will be, as aggressive as Microsoft in courting a steady stream of third party day-and-date additions. There’s also no PC-exclusive portion of the library.
Winner: PS Plus
Ari: Going into this exercise, I totally imagined it’d paint a clear picture of Game Pass superiority, but these two services seem fundamentally identical to me—right down to the UI—with Sony’s new version of PS Plus marginally better in the few aspects that matter. The prices are mostly the same, but the option to pay for a year of PS Plus at a “discount” edges out Game Pass in that regard. Sure, Game Pass’ big draw is that it puts Microsoft’s first-party games on the service at launch, but…Microsoft barely has any first-party games out this year! Right now, that perk seems like little more than a marketing line.
Ethan: I also thought Game Pass would be the clear winner coming out of this, but now I’m conflicted as well. Not everyone can afford to pay for a full year up front, but it really changes the calculus in this matchup. There are some other key differences as well, and while I don’t think they make one a clear winner over the other, I do think it makes it easier to decide which you want to pay for. Want immediate access to a meaty back catalog of some of the biggest and best games from the last generation? PS Plus wins. Want to stay current on some of the best new games coming out every month and play them at any time on your phone? Then it’s Game Pass all the way.
The Stadia controller that could become a collector’s item someday with the way things are going.Photo: Joanna Nelius / Gizmodo
Stadia may not have blossomed into the cloud gaming service that Google had hoped, but the technology behind it may live on by powering other services.
Google Stadia was supposed to be a gamer’s dream: You could play games on any device without experiencing lag thanks to the power of Google’s cloud. But after several hiccups, Google is shifting the focus of its Stadia division to a new back-end service called Google Stream, according to Insider. The company has been working on securing deals with partners like Capcom and Bungie, both of which Google pitched on its cloud technology to run their games within the browser. (With Sony buying Bungie, that may now be off the table.)
Google is also apparently courting Peloton, which has had its share of recent troubles and could probably use a marketable partnership to take the pressure off its dwindling bike sales. Peloton is reportedly working on a game for its bikes called Lanebreak, which uses Google’s cloud services as the backend. The Peloton bikes also run a version of Google’s Android OS.
In a statement, Google spokesperson Patrick Seybold told Insider: “We announced our intentions of helping publishers and partners deliver games directly to gamers last year, and have been working toward that.” Seybold added that while Google wouldn’t comment on rumors and speculation, it is “still focused on bringing great games to Stadia in 2022.”
Technically, Stadia isn’t dead. You can still log on, pay for a monthly subscription or buy an entire game outright, and start playing with a PlayStation, Xbox, or Stadia controller and a supported Android device or Chromecast Ultra. But there is no longer a Google-led team of game developers since the company shuttered its Stadia Games and Entertainment internal game studios last February.
Google has at least one deal with AT&T in the works similar to what it pitched to Bungie and Capcom, though it doesn’t use Google Stream branding. AT&T customers can stream the game Batman: Arkham Knight directly through their web browser, which uses Google’s technology on the backend.
Google is clearly trying to salvage what is left of Stadia by embedding its technology into existing products and platforms instead of pursuing consumers directly. Former and current Google employees told Insider they’d estimated only 20% of Stadia’s business is consumer-related. The other bulk is focused on “proof-of-concept work for Google Stream” and the types of deals mentioned above.
After the Insider report broke, Google tweeted out a statement to Stadia followers:
While this news is likely to bum out Stadia subscribers, it’s not entirely surprising that Google would head in this direction. Its cloud is where it makes a bulk of its money and where it’s putting a ton of resources. The company’s Q4 2021 earnings put Google’s cloud revenue growth at 45%, though it also lost $890 million.
Regardless of the new direction of Google Stream, there are still some Stadia employees holding out hope on the inside. “There are plenty of people internally who would love to keep it going,” an anonymous Google employee told Insider. “But they’re not the ones writing the checks.”
Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside offering Stadia Pro to the public.
The company is announcing the news today, though Kotaku began to hear rumblings from sources close to Stadia last week that Google’s service was heading for a major change. One games industry source told Kotaku that Google was canceling multiple projects, basically any games slated for release beyond a specific 2021 window, though they believed games close to release would still come out. Today brings some clarification.
Google will close its two game studios, located in Montreal and Los Angeles. Neither had released any games yet. That closure will impact around 150 developers, one source familiar with Stadia operations said. The company says it will try to find those developers new roles at Google.
Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin’s Creed for Ubisoft and moved on to EA several years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, is exiting the company, according to Google.
Google will continue to operate the Stadia gaming service and its $10 monthly Stadia Pro service. It’s unclear how many, if any, exclusive games will still come to the service, though the company has indicated that it can still sign new games and will bring more third-party releases to the platform. It nevertheless will look to many like a draw down of the plan to have Stadia run as a bona fide competitor to console platforms.
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The company plans to begin offering its Stadia tech to publishers, opening up the possibility for Stadia to become the streaming tech for other video game companies. Google’s head of Stadia operations, longtime console executive Phil Harrison, will focus on pursuing these new partnerships.
“We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools,” Harrison wrote in a blog post today. “We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry.”
Google initially offered Stadia in a $129 Founder’s Edition bundle, which included a custom controller, a Chromecast Ultra (used for streaming games from Google’s servers to a TV), and three months of Stadia Pro, a subscription service that granted access to certain games.
Google promoted some exciting features, including the ability to let players pass control of a livestreamed Stadia game on the fly and to share savestates of games, but many of them weren’t available at launch and remained in testing phases.
The service’s best moments may have been when its third-party ports showed off the strength of the cloud gaming model, in which a game can run well on just about any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2‘s Stadia support let players of that game drop in for an extra match or quest from their phone or laptop when they were far from their regular gaming gear. When Cyberpunk 2077 was faltering on everything else in December, it was running quite well on Stadia.
Still, without offering an all-you-can-play service nor offering killer exclusive games, Stadia struggled to get its footing. Meanwhile, Microsoft ramped up its xCloud cloud gaming service as part of its Game Pass Ultimate bundle, and Stadia became less and less alluring to the kind of hardcore gamer who can build buzz for a new gaming service.
Google seemingly built for the future with the creation of first-party studios and a leadership team consisting of accomplished studio heads and creative directors, but those efforts weren’t enough to stave off the fate many people feared when hearing about this Google initiative: that it would lose support from within before it got ample time to realize its potential.
Stadia isn’t quite done. The Stadia tech could still succeed. By many accounts, Stadia runs games great. But as a game-maker, Google appears to have packed it in. Said one source familiar with Stadia’s first-party operations, citing another tech giant’s widelypublicized failure to create video games: “Google was a terrible place to make games. Imagine Amazon, but under-resourced.”