What will be shown at the next Google Stadia Connect (7-14-2020)?
The next Stadia Connect is coming up on July 14th and, not to put too much stress on Google, it has got to be a big presentation. If Stadia wants to compete in the market against two brand new consoles (4 consoles if you count digital editions from the legacy players in the space, Microsoft and Sony) then a misstep here could reverberate for a long time.
So, what should we expect from the July 14th Stadia Connect?
As far as what we should realistically expect, I’ll start with what the official marketing materials say. The Summer Game Fest twitter account notes that we should expect “a look at some of the games coming this year,” and “a few surprises.” The official Stadia Twitter handle says simply “Join us for a look at some of the games coming to Stadia later this year.”
Of course we should expect games. I anticipate we’ll actually see quite a few games announced. We likely won’t get the barrage of 60 games we saw with Xbox’s E3 2019 presentation, but we should get at least 15 announcements with dates and possibly another 15 mentions of upcoming games. And, as Stadia’s tweet implies, I’m hoping for a lot of 2020 release dates.
Currently, Stadia has about 59 games available for purchase with 26 announced but not yet released. This means that if Stadia wants to fulfill the statement they made in January that they were bringing 120 games to the platform this year, they’d need to no only release all 26 that they’ve announced, but also announce and release 15 more. This feels doable, and I would love for all 15 of those to be announced at this next Stadia Connect.
Ryan McCaffrey from IGN spoke with Jerome Jones at Robot Entertainment and Marc-Alexis Cote from Ubisoft in a June 18 discussion as part of IGN’s Summer of Gaming, so it’s reasonable to suspect we’ll get more from Orcs Must Die 3 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Though, when it comes to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I doubt we’ll be getting any exclusive news. Though Ubisoft and Stadia seem to be close partners, Ubisoft will probably save exclusive details of one of their biggest franchises for an announcement with a platform that has a much larger user-base.
What about exclusive games, other than Orcs Must Die 3. Well, Stadia currently owns three studios, I think. I say “I think” because one of the studios is Stadia Games and Entertainment, which may not be a true studio. It might be more of an internal division focused on getting games to the platform, which may mean development or it may mean working with 3rd parties. The details around Stadia Games and Entertainment aren’t clear.
Stadia also launched a studio in March of 2020 led by former Sony Santa Monica head Shannon Studstill. And, I sometimes forget, Google purchased Typhoon Studios, who made last year’s surprisingly awesome Journey to the Savage Planet. Surprising because it is their first game and it is really, really fun. It’s the Metroid Prime game to hold us over until Metroid Prime 4. I have a video review of Journey to the Savage Planet, linked here, if you’d like to check that out.
So that’s 3, possibly 2, first party studios. What are they working on? I expect we’ll find out even if we don’t get very many details.
Also, I do think we can expect some Cyberpunk 2077 mention, even if as only a way to remind the public that Stadia is getting this highly-anticipated game.
I don’t believe the game will be hitting at the same time as other platforms, unfortunately, so I doubt we’ll get a specific release date. Otherwise, if we did get a specific release date, headlines will leverage those two dates, with Stadia’s being later, as just another occasion to dump on Stadia. Google doesn’t want that. However, if the Stadia release is just a couple weeks later than other platforms, maybe we’ll get a release date. But my guess is that we’ll be waiting months longer than other platforms for Cyberpunk 2077 to be released on Stadia.
Besides, if the release date of Cyberpunk 2077 was going to be on the same day as the other major platforms, we would have known that by now. Google would love to promote a same-date release.
Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed twice already, keep in mind. Some people suspect that the second delay is more about marketing than development, as in CD Projekt Red are wanting to pair Cyberpunk 2077 with the launch of the new console generation, but assuming that’s not true, if a studio is pushing back development on Playstation and Xbox versions of a game, they are doing so at the expense of any other platform. That’s just business. Prioritize the biggest user base. But I would love to be wrong. If Cyberpunk 2077 released on the same day as other platforms, I would be overjoyed.
Let’s dissect this same-date release concept for a bit. Why is that so important? If Stadia can release a big budget AAA game on the same day as other platforms, most importantly for this conversation, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X, that does a few things:
- it shows legitimacy. It shows that Stadia can no longer be tossed aside as an irrelevant product like a lot of influencers and some games media like to do.
- It may siphon some sales from other consoles. This allows sales charts to possibly show Stadia sales as more than just part of the chart label of “other.” Realistically, sales would still be far less than the established consoles, but even just to see the name Stadia alongside Playstation and Xbox in various marketing and sales charts could help with perception of value. Though I understand it could have the opposite effect and show just how dramatically different the sales of each of those platforms is, with Stadia being a minuscule piece of that chart.
- the gamer/marketers, those who play and promote games, would be able to evangelize for Stadia and its benefits, specifically its no-downloads feature. Currently, industry publications and well known influencers get early copies of most games so that reviews and footage can be released day-one. Stadia needs to be a part of that. But also important, I’d argue, is the ability for consumers level gamer/marketers, that’s the people like me who play games and create media about games for a small audience, if those people could access Cyberpunk 2077 at 12:00am, and begin streaming within 30 seconds, no downloads, no patches, then Stadia player footage would be some of the earliest player footage. Cyberpunk 2077 will have pre-load functionality on Playstation and also assumedly on Xbox, so having Stadia footage alongside those consoles again shows legitimacy. Youtube algorithms like early coverage, so this could be a way to showcase not only the performance and fidelity of Stadia, but also its near-instant start times.
So though I don’t believe at all that Cyberpunk 2077 will be this same-date release game that Stadia needs, Stadia will need such a game soon. It’s happened before, with the most high-profile instance being Doom Eternal which was released on all major platforms, including Stadia, on the same day. But that was back in April 2020. Google needs to continue working to clean the residue from its poor launch and find the next same-date release game. Maybe that will get announced at this Stadia Connect.
Outside of games, I expect the overall delivery of the Stadia Connect to feel a lot like a commercial rather than a celebration of games as we might expect with established platforms like Playstation and Xbox. Sunny Cloud Gaming made a great point with his predictions video. Because the Stadia Connect is part of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest—which for all intents and purposes is this year’s closest E3 replacement—this Stadia Connect will not have just the Stadia-loving audience, but will be exposed to the wider game-buying public. Because of this, I think Stadia will be trying very hard to re-introduce itself as a service worthy of the casual gamer’s living room. We’ll probably hear a lot about the free tier of the service, now just called Stadia, and the paid level of service, the Stadia Pro subscription. I anticipate we’ll hear a few times some variation of the phrase “you don’t need to buy a next gen console to play next get games.” For Stadia fans like us, this will probably sound like old news, but remember Stadia is needing to re-introduce itself to a lot of gamers out there.
The truth is Google still has some Public Relations injuries to massage out. At the initial Stadia announcement and the November 2019 presentation, I sensed gamers became a bit defensive. There was a sense that this mega corporation was trying to buy its way into our living rooms without having to slowly build the audience that Sony and Microsoft had to do. Yes, Sony and Microsoft were mega corporations at the time that they entered the console space, but the space was smaller then. There was room for optimism and excitement.
As for the “few surprises” that the Summer of Games tweet references. I imagine there may be some game release surprises. Maybe some games released the day of the Stadia Connect. But I think more realistically, the surprises may have to do with long-promised features. State Share, the feature that lets users share URLs that bring other players into an instance of their game, is currently being beta tested with Crayta. I’d like to see a surprise rollout of that functionality. Crowd Connect, Youtube Streaming, and full In-Game Google Assistant functionality (emphasis on “full”; I know some Google Assistant functionality is available now), these are all features we haven’t yet seen. Because these have already been announced, they may not count as surprises, but for me, these would be welcomed announcements.
Speculated features include Android TV support and Demo functionality for all games. Those would be surprises as well, but I wouldn’t expect any announcement at this time.
As for what I personally want to see. Simply put: I want to see a killer-looking, single-player, first party exclusive to be released this year. I don’t think it will happen. My bet is that Stadia is going to lean heavily into multiplayer games as it tries to grow its user base. Multiplayer games allow for a better showcase of the unique Stadia features, including State Share, Crowd Connect, and of course the promised ability to play battle royale scenario type games with hundreds of players. I much prefer a single-player game, but Stadia isn’t just for me, and I understand that.
