There is so much hysteria around the Google Stadia since the developers have cleared the air regarding its release in US, UK, Canada and Europe already. Now Indian users are also eagerly waiting for the release of Stadia in India. Owing to this, the company is looking forward to provide the Stadia streaming services in India in two years from now i.e. 2024.
As you may know, Google Stadia is Google’s own cloud based gaming platform. The good thing about this is that you don’t need to buy a gaming console to play and it’s totally fine if you don’t have a PC. Stadia will run on Google Chrome using any desktop, laptop, TVs, tablets and you can even use your Smartphone. The developers even titled the Google Stadia as the “Future of Gaming”.
So, the company has finally planned to release Stadia for Indian Gamers, and already discussing FUP issues with local partners.
The release date of Google Stadia is still a big surprise; the company has not declared a fixed date so far. According to the company, Stadia is going to launch anytime in 2019 in the US, UK, Canada and Europe.
One content firm owner has said “We’ve been told that Stadia should be out in two years,” on the condition of anonymity. He further added, “Game publishers have expressed interest as well and would be in touch with us too.”
While it seems like company is doubtful regarding the plans, specifically about the bandwidth consumption of Stadia.
One ISP employee on the condition of anonymity has said,”PS Now uses about 3GB per hour at 720p,” He further added that “At the moment there’s no clear indication on how this would work in India with Google Stadia. Chances are you may use up a month’s worth of FUP [fair usage policy, or data caps as they’re known] with a single stream at 1080p or 4K. We haven’t received information on this yet.”
To handle this matter, there are chances that Google may partner with the ISPs in order to provide Stadia without the FUP and bandwidth issues. Moreover, this is how the Zapak and indiagames subscription services have worked.
However, according to some industry insiders, in this period of net nutrality, this may not work.
Another challenge, the Google is going to face while launching Stadia in India is the revenue and how much to pay the developers per hour in India, because the price of video games in India is generally low – which can impose a challenge for the company.
A Google spokesperson even said, “We have no information to share at this time as Stadia is not slated for launch in India just yet”.
Many other services are also to be launched in India, including Hatch, which is up for the beta test for its game streaming services in India and Microsoft’s Project xCloud to target the audience that cannot afford the gaming consoles.
