The initial reception to Google Stadia has been tepid, at best. As PCMag Hardware Analyst Matt Buzzi explained on Cheddar earlier this week, Stadia's initial game library is limited, there's significant input lag when you're playing over Chromecast, and it'll be a long time before 5G unlocks the true high-speed-gaming-anywhere potential of cloud gaming.
So why did Google roll Stadia out now? Aside from keeping pace with Apple Arcade and trying to beat competitors such as Microsoft xCloud and EA's Project Atlas to wide public launches, the decision simply comes down to holiday shopping dollars.
According to a report from market research firm NPD Group, spending on video games peaks during the holidays, with monthly sales up to three times higher than the rest of the year. In 2018, gaming sales topped $2.5 billion in November and close to $3.5 billion in December, compared with monthly sales of between $500 million and $1.5 billion for the previous 10 months
Stadia's monthly subscription cost is only $9.99 per month for a Stadia Pro membership. You can also buy it as a $129 bundle with the Google Stadia Premiere Edition, which comes with a Chromecast Ultra, a Stadia controller, and three months of Stadia Pro; additional controllers are $69 each. The catch is that even if you pay all of that, you still have to buy each cloud-based game you want at full retail price.
As PCMag Senior Consumer Electronics Analyst Will Greenwald explained in his review:" Purchasing a game on Stadia makes it available only on Stadia, which means its availability and thus your ownership and ability to play the game is completely dependent on Stadia remaining available as a service. There is no way to download or transfer a game purchased on Stadia, or otherwise preserve it in the event Google stops supporting the service."
It's a great way for Google not only to rack up initial bundle sales and recurring monthly subscription revenue but also to juice holiday game sales for all its launch partners, for games including Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Final Fantasy XV, and Red Dead Redemption 2. By rushing out the service, Google might make a quick buck, but that may come at the cost of Stadia going down as the first big cloud gaming flop.