Google Stadia Premiere Edition - White

Product Information

As with the Tomb Raider games on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, you need to choose between those modes on Stadia; there is no catchall 4K60 mode. Rather than approaching the cloud gaming problem with a handful of servers and a Steam installation, Google has opted to create an entire ecosystem for Stadia that can go toe-to-toe with consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Another weird caveat is that Stadia doesn't work well on office connections - so if that's where you're planning on streaming, you might want to reconsider your purchase.

To review Stadia, Google sent us the Stadia Premiere Edition, a Pixel 3a XL phone, an unbranded phone clip that connects to the controller, and a short USB-C cable. As always, though, you can play your Stadia version on any supported device without the Premiere Edition. 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. surround sound, as well as granting you access to a growing library of games that are free for as long as your subscription is active – including a copy of Destiny 2: The Complete Collection.It's not uncommon for a publisher to announce a game is coming to Stadia only to then follow it up with six months of silence before suddenly revealing it'll be available tomorrow. It’s a solid alternative to a gaming PC, but doesn’t provide as great an experience on a TV or with a controller.

You don’t need any extra hardware to use Google Stadia, since it’s compatible with many controllers as well as a mouse and keyboard. The current release feels like a beta test more than anything else, severely lacking in features and coming with some lag issues, to boot. I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. Claiming the free titles with Stadia Pro, the app immediately asked where we wanted to start playing and, sure enough, after a couple seconds of loading, the games started. My monitor is 1440p (not 4K like my TV) so I need to use the third-party extension to force the resolution to be in line with my monitor.It looks like a slightly more plump Xbox One controller, shaped like rounded trapezoid with thick grips extending from the bottom left and right. I played games on a Pixel 3a XL phone connected to a Fios network over Wi-Fi, in a Chrome tab on a PC connected to a corporate network, in a Chrome tab on a different PC connected to my home Fios network, and on a TV with a Chromecast Ultra connected to a Fios network both over Wi-Fi and Ethernet. You can overcome this problem with our best VPN or, better yet, our best VPN for gaming, but it’s a problem most cloud gaming services don’t have.

He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is. We put Stadia — the self-proclaimed future of gaming — under rigorous testing, comparing everything from the controller to the interface to the input lag so we can see how it stacks up against a traditional gaming experience. Cloud gaming, or streaming games without the need for physical copies, renders games on a remote server instead of your local device. You’ll add games through the Android app (or your Pixel phone if you want to go the whole Google hog), where you can also manage your library and view recent articles about the platform. This is a problem, because the Chromecast Ultra offers the worst gameplay experience of all the ways to access Stadia, as I will explain below.

His main interests are web technologies and online privacy, though he dips his toes in photography and the occasional card game as well. Google recommends at least 10Mbps download speed for 720p streaming, 20Mbps download speed for 1080p streaming, and at least 35Mbps download speed for 4K streaming.