Stadia the Technology? Awesome. Stadia the Service? Not So Much

My family owns a little place just over the border in Wisconsin. That’s where my parents met and fell in love, and when my dad’s company got bought some years back, they used the surprise windfall to buy a small place to call their own. It’s not big, but it is homey. […] I spend a lot of weekends up there, but it’s a house without many frills, especially when it comes to electronics. There’s internet, but no video games. […]

Stadia is supposed to be the answer to my problem. Google’s game streaming service, which launches today in an extremely limited and frankly disconcerting form, has an easy pitch: What if you could play your games wherever and whenever? What if you never had to worry about carrying around hardware, and could just open your phone? Turn on your TV? Everyone has a billion devices connected to the Internet laying around, and each of those could become a portal to the game you would otherwise be playing. That sounds awesome. […] But there is a reason it’s felt like Google has deliberately avoided a splashy launch for a service that otherwise seems positioned as a huge part of the company’s future: this is an early access debut for Stadia. For most people, the answer as to whether you should buy this is a resounding no. The technology is there, but the service is not even close. […]

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