- The comparison
- Mobile
- Google Stadia's big plan for 2020: more exclusives and more than 100 new games
We think it's fair to say that Google Stadia got off to a rocky start. The video game streaming service captured our imaginations when it was first announced around E3 last year, but its eventual launch was disappointed with uncompetitive pricing and a relatively small range with a multitude of older games. However, that could change in 2020, with plans for a massive expansion of the platform's library of games. The next 12 months will apparently see over 100 games on the Stadia platform, as well as a handful of exclusive titles, some of which will be limited to the premium tier of Stadia Pro, and won't be available anywhere else. A press release for the Stadia 2020 schedule informed us that "we're looking at over 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020, and we're targeting over ten games in the first half of this year alone, that will only be available on Stadia # 39; when it launches."
Take the competition
It should be noted that Xbox Games Pass and PlayStation Now offer several hundred titles, so there's still some work to be done, but any current or potential Stadia subscriber should benefit from the breakthrough in additional games. However, there is no information on what these unannounced games are: "We are working with our partners to share more about these games soon." Exclusives may be what decides Stadia's long-term success, just as the Epic Games Store saw them as crucial to attracting people to its marketplace, but unless they're games people are eager to play, and not just token additions to the library, not every exclusive in the world will convince players to sign up. Other updates for 2020 include support for 4K gaming on the web, as well as increased functionality in Google Assistant and support for more Android phones beyond the Google Pixel.