Google Stadia

Price: £119 from fave.co/2uFG6Dn

With Stadia, there are no easy answers. Every compliment I want to pay Google’s game streaming service – and there are quite a few actually – is shackled to a caveat, a complication, or a complaint. Sometimes all three.

That’s a problem. The biggest problem, really. Google intended Stadia to simplify the way people consume games. No hardware. Play your games anywhere, at any time. And yet the reality, at least for now, is a labyrinth of potential pitfalls. Does Google Stadia work? Sure, under the right circumstances and with the right game. Will it work for you, though? That’s a harder question, or rather a hundred questions, any one of which could prove fatal to Stadia’s chances.

Let’s dig in.

The best case scenario

Those who purchase the Google Stadia Founder’s Edition, or functionally identical Premiere Edition, will receive a Stadia controller, a 4K-ready Chromecast Ultra, and three months of the £8.99 per month Stadia Pro subscription. This is the only way to get access to Stadia right now and for the foreseeable future.

And there’s a reason for that: it’s the only use case that feels finished. Google Stadia arrives with a litany of missing features, especially on PC and phones. As such, the Chromecast is the only device that supports 4K streaming at release, as well as 5.1 surround sound and the wireless Stadia controller. Those features won’t hit other platforms until 2020.

Consider the Chromecast