Google plans on rolling out its Stadia gaming service next month and while we will most likely not get it in SA, it is interesting to see how it attempts to change the gaming landscape with its cloud-based experience.
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Google is confident the service will be a success and is comparing it to current hardware on the market saying that in a “year or two”, Google Stadia will be more responsive and faster than local gaming systems.
Edge Magazine spoke to Alex Wiltshire who is one of Google’s top streaming engineers and claims the company is verging on gaming superiority with Stadia. So much so that Google is even hoping to take the performance crown in gaming in the next couple of years.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Ultimately, we think in a year or two we’ll have games that are running faster and feel more responsive in the cloud than they do locally, regardless of how powerful the local machine is.”[/perfectpullquote]
Google claims that Stadia is making use of some advanced streaming tech including machine learning and modelling. They believe the tech is capable of overcoming the hurdles presented by cloud gaming today even though the data centres are thousands of miles away from the user.
Google has a “negative latency” feature which acts as a workaround for any lag that users may face when using the service. It will predict the latency and work out a delay to align the player’s feedback with the game’s renderings. In short, Stadia will try and predict what the player would press when the lag kicks in and make the decision for you.
As for the claim that the performance will beat local consoles in the next few years, it is a bold claim. With the PS5 and Xbox Scarlet launching next year, Google will most likely have to play catch up with the new next-gen hardware on the market.
