Google ‘aiming to release’ new Stadia features weekly, including achievements

During today’s Stadia AMA, Google provided an overview of its “approach to releasing features” for Stadia. New functionality will come as soon as a week after launch and continue from that point onwards.

The “key user-journey” for Stadia is “Play the Game on your biggest screen,” and the day one experience of the Stadia Controller only working wirelessly on TVs with the Chromecast Ultra bearing that out. It makes sense for the company to prioritize the experience on most people’s best screen.

Our approach to releasing features on Stadia is similar to how we run Google Search, YouTube and other Google services: gradual rollout and continuous improvement, based on your feedback. We always start with nailing the key user-journey and then proceed with releasing extra features. YouTube started with “watch video”.

Director of Product Andrey Doronichev says Google is “aiming to release new stuff weekly after 11/19.” For example, “games that support State Share and Crowd Play will be released next year,” while “new features will start popping as soon as one week after launch.”

Related to that feature roadmap is achievements. According to publisher experience head Beri Lee, “You will start achieving right away” on Stadia with games automatically tracking from November 19th. However, the “platform UI for viewing your achievements and achievement notifications will launch shortly after launch.”