Google Stadia
Stadia was a cloud gaming service developed and operated by Google. Known in development as Project Stream, the service debuted through a closed beta in October 2018, and publicly launched in November 2019. Stadia was accessible through Chromecast Ultra and Android TV devices, on personal computers via the Google Chrome web browser and other Chromium-based browsers, Chromebooks and tablets running ChromeOS, and the Stadia mobile app on supported Android devices. There was also an experimental mode with support for all Android devices that were capable of installing the Stadia mobile app. In December 2020, Google released an iOS browser-based progressive web application for Stadia, enabling gameplay in the Safari browser.
Stadia was capable of streaming video games to players from the company's numerous data centers at up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, with support for high-dynamic-range video. It offered the option to purchase games from its store, along with a selection of free-to-play games. While the base service was free and allowed users to stream at resolutions up to 1080p, a Stadia Pro monthly subscription allowed for a maximum resolution of 4K, 5.1 surround sound, HDR, and offered a growing collection of free games that—once claimed—remained in the user's library whenever they had an active subscription. Both tiers allowed users to play online multiplayer games without any additional costs. Stadia was integrated with YouTube, and its "state share" feature allowed players to launch a supported game from a save state shared by another player via permalink. The service supported Google's proprietary Stadia game controller, along with various non-Stadia controllers through USB and Bluetooth connections.
The service was in competition with other cloud gaming services, including Sony's PlayStation Plus cloud streaming, Nvidia's GeForce Now, Amazon's Luna, and Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming. Stadia initially received a mixed reception from reviewers, with most criticism directed at its limited library of games and lack of promised features. Google had initially intended to develop in-house games in addition to hosting games produced by third parties, but abandoned this plan in February 2021, shutting down its studios. The service continued to sell third party games, and Google offered the game-streaming technology as a white-label product. Google announced in September 2022 that it would be shutting down Stadia; the service went offline permanently on January 18, 2023. Google refunded those that bought the hardware in the Google store and software in the Stadia store, and provided a software update to the Stadia controller to enable Bluetooth connectivity for use on computers, phones, tablets, and game consoles. The deadline of converting the Stadia controller on the website and Bluetooth support tool shut down and ended on December 31, 2025.
Features
Stadia was a cloud gaming service, in which it requires an Internet connection and a device running either Chromium or a dedicated application. Stadia elaborated upon YouTube's capacity to stream media to the user, as game streaming was seen as an extension of watching video game live streams, according to Google's Phil Harrison; the name "Stadia", the Latin plural of "stadium", was meant to reflect that it was offering a collection of entertainment, which the viewer could choose to sit back and watch, or take an active part in. As Google had built out a large number of data centers across the globe, the company believed that Stadia was in a better position for cloud gaming compared to past endeavors like OnLive, PlayStation Now, and Gaikai, as most players would be geographically close to a data center. Players could start playing games without having to download new content to their personal device. Players could opt to record or stream their sessions on to YouTube without extra software or equipment. Viewers of such streams could launch their own instances of the games directly from the stream that they were just watching.Stadia promised novel features based on its streaming model. Stream Connect would allow Stadia players, cooperatively playing the same game with friends, to have picture-in-picture inserts on their display of their friends' point-of-view in the game. This feature was first launched with the release of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. The streaming technology allowed for a larger number of concurrent players on a game server; for example, servers for Grid are normally limited to 16 players, while the Stadia version allowed up to 40.
While Stadia could use any HID-class USB controller, Google developed its own controller, which connected via the user's Wi-Fi directly to the Google data center in which the game was running, to reduce input latency. Google was also exploring further ways to reduce latency, involving the prediction of user input through various means, so that any apparent network lag between controller and game response was minimized. During its GDC 2019 keynote presentation, Google confirmed that the controller would also feature Google Assistant, which would automatically search YouTube for relevant, helpful videos related to the game the user was playing.
Stadia offered two tiers of service: a free level, and a monthly subscription Stadia Pro level. The free Stadia level limited the video stream resolution to 1080p. The Pro tier, costing approximately per month, allowed users higher streaming rates, up to 4K resolution, access to a library of free games over time, and discounts on other games offered for Stadia.
Publisher-specific subscriptions would also be offered; for example, Ubisoft announced that its Uplay Plus subscription service would be available to Stadia users.
Since April 2020, new Stadia users were offered a limited introductory period of free access to Stadia Pro features, retaining access to any games purchased during this period if they fell back to the free Stadia level; initially, new users received two months of Pro access, which was reduced to one month starting on June 3, 2020.
The internet speed requirements for the different types of picture quality from Stadia's service were as follows:
| Bandwidth required | Video quality | Audio quality |
| 10 Mbit/s | 720p, 60FPS | Stereo |
| 20 Mbit/s | 1080p HDR Video, 60FPS | 5.1 Surround |
| 35 Mbit/s | 4K HDR Video, 60FPS | 5.1 Surround |
Games
Stadia required users to purchase games to use on the service, though it also offered a selection of fully free-to-play titles. Pro subscribers also had the option to claim a growing catalog of free games that, once claimed, remained available to the user as long as they had an active subscription. At the time of the platform's unveiling in June 2019, Google announced that Gylt by Tequila Works and Get Packed by Moonshine Studios would be timed exclusives to Stadia. The service launched with 22 games, adding 4 more in December 2019, and by the end of 2020 the service had over 130 games.In January 2020, Google announced that it planned to release over 120 games for Stadia during that year, of which 10 were timed exclusives set to release in the first half of the year. Further, Stadia claimed that more than 100 games would arrive in 2021. In December 2020, Ubisoft's gaming subscription, Ubisoft+ arrived on Stadia, letting users play all Ubisoft games available on Stadia. There were 18 Ubisoft games available at launch with later titles added as they released.
On January 13, 2023, five days before its closure, Stadia Platform Content released Worm Game, a simple variant of snake used internally to test features before the service's shutdown, as both its only first-party title and the final title released in the service, as a thank you gift for all Stadia players. The game consisted of a campaign mode consisting of a handful of levels in which players must move their snake to reach a golden apple, an endless high-score based arcade mode, a stage builder, and a multiplayer mode which let up to four people play together in high-score or deathmatch variants. Never intended for public release, it featured rudimentary graphics and menus, and plays a single chiptune-style audio track on loop.
Hardware
Upon launch, Stadia's cloud hardware used a custom Intel x86 processor clocked at 2.7 GHz, with AVX2 and 9.5 megabytes of L2+L3 cache. It had a custom AMD GPU based on the Vega architecture with HBM2 memory, 56 compute units, and 10.7 teraFLOPS. The service employed solid-state drive storage, and 16 GB of RAM shared between the GPU and the CPU.Controller
Google developed its own controller for Stadia. It has two thumbsticks, a directional pad, four main face buttons, two sets of shoulder buttons, and five additional controller face buttons. To use the controller, players could either plug it into a compatible device with a USB cable, or connect it over Wi-Fi to a local network for a direct connection to Google's Stadia servers, reducing input lag. The controller was available in three color schemes, "Clearly White", "Just Black", and "Wasabi"; the "Founder's Edition" bundle included a limited-edition "Midnight Blue" controller.Google produced prototypes in several other colours, and transparent versions of the controller were given as gifts to people who worked on Stadia.
While the Stadia controller does have a Bluetooth Low Energy radio, this was initially disabled. Google released a web-based tool on January 17, 2023, to enable Bluetooth on the controller, allowing it to be used with computers and other devices just before and after the shutdown of Stadia. The deadline for converting the controller from WiFi to Bluetooth was planned to end on December 31, 2023, before being extended to December 31, 2024, and then finally to December 31, 2025.