Google Stadia: Everything you need to know

Since launching in December, Stadia’s Achievements page is still only available on the web and Chromecast Ultra. Google Stadia is now displaying “total play time” and other game-specific statistics in Achievements.

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Nearly every Made by Google product released in the last few years includes a way to invoke the Google Assistant, and the Stadia Controller is no different. The Stadia Controller’s Google Assistant button has suddenly become far more useful, as you can now use it while playing your games.

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The true value of a game console, more than its raw hardware capabilities, is its library of exclusive games. We got hands-on time with the latest timed exclusive for Stadia — Crayta, a hub for both playing games and creating games of your own — and think it could very well be Stadia’s killer app.

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One of the strictest limitations of Google Stadia is that you can currently only play while on a Wi-Fi connection. According to the latest version of Stadia for Android, Google is preparing to allow players to experiment with playing on a 4G mobile data connection.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many of us around the country to work from home, forcing companies to adapt in new and creative ways. For Bungie, the developers of Destiny 2, Google Stadia was one of the key ways their teams were able to get back to working and playtesting effectively.

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During April’s Stadia Connect event, Google showed off Wave Break, an upcoming First on Stadia title that takes the familiar skateboarding genre and adds a heaping helping of Miami Vice. We took some time to chat with one of the developers of Wave Break, learning their ambitions for the game as well as what it’s like to develop for Google Stadia.

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Last year at GDC 2019, Google unveiled Stadia to game developers with a strong focus on new features that would be nearly impossible on traditional gaming platforms but are made easy with cloud gaming. One of those features, “State Share,” will be arriving for Stadia in beta this summer in support of Crayta.

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The next Stadia Connect event, where Google will share the latest features and games coming soon to Stadia, has now been set to take place next month.

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In addition to this morning’s launch of The Elder Scrolls Online for Pro, Google today is cutting the price of Stadia Premiere Edition to $99.99. However, the Google Store bundle now lacks a three-month Stadia Pro trial.

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Later this week, the initial two-month promo for Stadia’s free tier will end and be replaced by a more standard introductory offer. Regardless, all will benefit from June 2020’s six new Stadia Pro games.

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On Thursday, Google expanded Stadia access to all modern Android phones and the mobile app quickly hit a million installs after that. The Stadia website for prospective users was also redesigned to better sell the streaming service to news users and now features a list of available games.

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On Thursday, Google gave Android users the ability to play Stadia on any modern phone. Following that expanded support, the Stadia app now has over 1 million installs.

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This afternoon, Sony took the wraps off their long-anticipated PlayStation 5, and in the process of doing so, they’ve shown what Google Stadia is missing most.

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We’ve been tracking the progress of Google Stadia’s arrival on Google’s own Android TV platform, but it’s been a slow process. Today, though, there’s good news. Google Stadia now works on Android TV! It’s just not official and kind of a pain to set up. Let me explain.

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