Stadia’s success could benefit Nintendo in the long-run

Google has finally entered the videogame market with their announcement of Stadia, a new streaming platform that they believe is set to revolutionise the gaming scene as we know it.

Stadia has made some high profile partnerships with the likes of Unreal and Unity already pledging support, so Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox would have had an idea of what was coming when Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, took to the stage at GDC 2019 in California. Whilst Stadia’s success is yet to be determined, it’ll be interesting to see how their competitors will respond and how this service will impact these long-established big three.

Despite Microsoft and Sony set to announce some big things in the summer, with strong rumours that Microsoft could announce a digital-only Xbox One and Sony seemingly on the brink of announcing the successor to the PS4, it’s Nintendo - with nothing lined up - that could fare best if Stadia takes off.

It’s safe to say that the majority of PlayStation or Xbox owners have their consoles connected to the internet 99% of the time. They are powerful machines, but are wholly static; nobody lugs their PS4 to work and back just to play God of War on their lunch break. Other than Sony’s VR offering and the platform exclusives, there isn’t a massive difference at the moment in what Xbox and PlayStation can offer if Stadia was to work as flawlessly as Google believes.

Both Xbox and PlayStation offer a limited selection of games on a subscription service, whereas Stadia’s entire catalogue will exclusively be instantly playable. Xbox offers multi-platform support from console to PC, Stadia offers multi-screen support on limitless devices. Compare that to Nintendo’s Switch, and there are more noticeable niches. Stadia can’t offer portable offline gaming and physical game ownership, on top of a colossal set of exclusive IPs like Mario and Zelda. If the gaming world starts to lean towards a streaming-oriented model, those discouraged will likely be closer drawn to the Switch.

It doesn’t look like Google are in it for the short haul, either. Phil Harrison, the Vice President and General Manager at Google, has come out and said that users wanting to stream 1080p/60fps games are likely going to need a 20-25Mb/s connection, whereas 4K/60fps will need closer to 30Mb/s. Whilst admitting that he doesn’t expect people to entirely change platform overnight, he does believe these bandwidth requirements are realistic enough to get a lot on board. Not everyone will have these speedy and stable connections, but you could compare this availability to how 4K is now. 4K TVs aren’t in as many homes as 1080p ones, but there’s a big enough market for Microsoft to create a machine capable of utilising such a feature in the Xbox One X, hoping that this availability will change in the future.

None of this seems to phase Phil Spencer, the VP Executive at Xbox, who stated in a leaked internal email that Google’s announcement wasn’t anything too surprising and that Microsoft will “go big” on streaming at E3 2019. We already know that Microsoft was planning their own streaming service called xCloud and this email shows confidence about Xbox’s future. E3 will likely reveal if it’s all just a clever poker face, however.

Sony has been very quiet about their future plans and until they come up with something they will continue to draw questions after Stadia’s announcement and their intention to skip E3 this year. As for PC gaming, sales figures are increasing. However, Stadia’s impact on the market that’s furthest detached from physical games could mean sales in PC games and components take a nosedive, as low-powered machines will be all that’s required to play games on Stadia. If services like Shadow take off at the same time (offering remote access to hardware with games still owned by the user) then consumer-owned hardware sales may drop even further.

Stadia’s success will be largely dependant on the number of games it offers at launch. Smaller developers with less reputation to lose have already pledged their support with work on games exclusively for Stadia. If bigger developers jump on-board, then it may only be a matter of time before Google become a big-name player, with Nintendo best placed to revel in their success. Many said similar things about Google+, mind you.