Google Stadia releases next month; here's what we know and what games are available

The future of gaming is on the horizon, with games slowly moving to the cloud and the technology slowly adapting games to the cloud service. Among the new candidates of cloud gaming is Google Stadia. Google is releasing their new Stadia console on November 19.

Google has not been very involved in the gaming industry. Their most amount of involvement is with Google Play, which is linked to their Android mobile operating systems. Google has a track record of launching ambitious projects which eventually get shut down, but let's hope the Google Stadia is not one of them.

Google Stadia is now going to be one of the first products to launch into game streaming and playing directly from the cloud. Regardless of whether it fails or succeeds, we will finally understand the reality of cloud gaming in the future.

So what is Google Stadia and what games can we expect for the new console?

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#1 Availability

Only to lauch in 14 regions across the world

The Google Stadia console will only be available in 14 select regions on launch: The United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Stadia will be available to other regions as Google slowly launches it in 2020.

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#2 Specifications

Google Stadia has a 10.7 teraflop GPU

Here are the hardware specifications of Google Stadia:

• CPU: Custom 2.7GHz hyper-threaded x86 CPU with AVX2 SIMD and 9.5MB L2+L3 cache
• GPU: Custom AMD GPU with HBM2 memory and 56 compute units, capable of 10.7 teraflops
• RAM: 16GB of RAM with up to 484GB/s of performance
• SSD cloud storage

Google Stadia has a 10.7 teraflop GPU, which basically means that it is capable of rendering 4K quality games much faster than the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Although PS and Xbox are due for new editions that will be faster than the Stadia, it is still very impressive hardware.

There are also network requirements since Google Stadia requires you to be online (no offline gaming is the biggest downside). They are:

• Minimum 10 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload
• 35 Mbps download for 4K streaming

#3 Integrations

Access the game anytime at your leisure

Google Stadia is also going to be quite robust. You can play the games from the console from your TV, your smartphone, a Google Chrome browser on your laptop, Chromecast and much more. The idea of cloud streaming is for you to be able to access the games anytime, anywhere on any platform and get rid of the dependency on hardware.

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#4 Games available

Stadia's first trial game was on Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Google Stadia's first trial game was on Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Since then, Google has collaborated with many high profile gaming studios to bring your favourite games, released and to be released on the Stadia.

NOTE: Games must be bought separately unless you purchased Stadia Pro (see next point)

Here is the full list below:

• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Borderlands 3
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Darksiders Genesis
• Destiny 2
• Destroy All Humans!
• DOOM
• DOOM Eternal
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
• Farming Simulator 19
• Final Fantasy 15
• Football Manager 2020
• Get Packed
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• Gods & Monsters
• Grid
• Gylt (Google Stadia exclusive)
• Just Dance 2020
• Kine
• Marvel's Avengers
• Metro Exodus
• Mortal Kombat 11
• NBA 2K
• Orcs Must Die!
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
• Rage 2
• Samurai Showdown
• Superhot
• The Crew 2
• The Division 2
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• Thumper
• Tomb Raider Trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider)
• Trials Rising
• Watch Dogs Legion
• Windjammers 2
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood

#5 Subscriptions

It's quite courageous for Google to come up with a Pro plan

A common misconception is that Google Stadia is trying to be the "Netflix" for games. You will need to purchase the Google Stadia hardware for $129 first. You can choose to play for free or subscribe to the Stadia Pro subscription at $9.99/month.

You can only get access to 4K resolutions as well as surround sound and monthly free games if you are a Pro member. This is similar to Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus but you get 4K with your Xbox One X or PS4 Pro without additional cost. Additionally, you will also get discounts for games.

It's quite courageous for Google to come up with a Pro plan even before console release but let's wait and see how well they do.

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#6 Future

Cloud gaming is not going to take over the gaming industry so soon.

We are now in the crossroads between the gaming of today and the gaming of tomorrow. Cloud gaming is not just exclusive to Google Stadia but Microsoft's Project xCloud, Sony's PS Now and Nvidia's GEForce Now is also exploring similar avenues.

The only challenge of cloud gaming is that you will need constant connection to the internet and your console will pretty much be useless if you are offline. With mobile gaming gaining more and more traction, gamers will be thrilled to be playing games which are normally Xbox or PS exclusive on their mobile devices.

Cloud gaming is not going to take over the gaming industry so soon. Not until every country in the world has good internet access across different locations. But it is breaking new barriers that we have never seen before in human history and the future is certainly a very exciting one!