Stadia for Android TV scores 100K downloads in less than two months [Updated]

Kyle Bradshaw | Aug 12 2021 - 11:21 am PT

After months of anticipation, Stadia has finally become available on Android TV, and in the first two weeks, the app has seen a fantastic turnout in terms of the number of downloads.

Update: Stadia for Android TV has continued to grow, reaching another milestone ahead of the two month mark.

Stadia for Android TV experienced a soft launch last Monday, June 21, allowing players to preload the app onto their device, but not play — at least not officially. The app didn’t formally launch until Wednesday, June 23, and we found that, despite its quirks, Stadia for Android TV offers an experience worthy of finally unplugging your Chromecast Ultra.

All said and done, the new Android TV app for Stadia, at least in its current state, is more than enough to get the job done. Google has definitely checked the box of bringing its streaming platform to Android TV and Google TV devices in a stable and consistent way. Now that there’s a stable base to work from, we hope that Google will gradually add new features and tweaks to better integrate Stadia with Google TV.

As noted by TruthOvercomesLies on Reddit, between that Google TV ad and excitement from the Stadia community, Stadia for Android TV has managed to reach the “50K+ Downloads” milestone in the Google Play Store. That means the app has been downloaded somewhere between 50,000 and 99,999 downloads in less than two weeks. By comparison, Stadia’s Android mobile app has received over 1,000,000 downloads since November 2019.

Update 8/12: With Stadia for Android TV just over a week away from its two-month launch anniversary, we’ve noted that the app has hit yet another major milestone. After getting 50,000 installs within two weeks, the app has gone on to reach over 100,000 installs, as counted by the Play Store, in less than two months.

While far from wildfile growth, it speaks to continued interest from players in the ability to play video games directly on their Smart TV or on their favorite streaming device.

While Stadia is only officially available for a handful of Android TVs and Google TVs, almost any Android TV device can download the app and try to play through an “experimental” option, opening the gates for gaming on a wide variety of TVs and set top boxes.

Backing up the play, last week Google TV showed its first-ever ad for Stadia — more specifically, the fully free-to-play Destiny 2 — on the home screen. This recommendation put streaming a video game into essentially the same category as streaming a TV show or movie.