No game is going to revitalize Stadia until they change their business model. Let's look at their competition and compare real quick:
- Geforce Now: More powerful hardware than Stadia, can be played on any PC/MAC/Android/IOS/Shield/Chromebook, $5 more per month than Stadia, and can play a lot of your Steam library. The last point is the most important here, as Steam has a huge amount of games and they are often inexpensive.
- Gamepass Streaming: Weaker hardware than Stadia currently and runs games at 720p, but will be much stronger sometime next year when they move to Series X blades. Can only be played on android currently, but will be available on PC and IOS devices early next year, and on TV apps at a future undisclosed date. Costs $5 per month more than Stadia Pro but is part of Gamepass Ultimate, which gets you access to over 300 games on PC, XBOX, and mobile. Has a lot of Xbox exclusives included with day and date release, which will only increase now that Microsoft is running 23 studios.
- PSNow: Hardware definitely needs an upgrade and resolution is also low, is playable on any PC, but is half the price of Stadia Pro at $5 per month. Has over 800 games on demand, including a bunch of Sony exclusives from PS1 to PS4.
- Amazon Luna: Running games at 1080p/60fps it is technically less powerful than Stadia or Geforce Now, but better than PSNOW or Gamepass Streaming. It can be played on PC, Android, IOS, or Fire TV stick. Is cheaper than Stadia at $5.99 per month. Includes 76 games with the subscription currently. Does not have any exclusives.
Hardware: Stadia is 2nd out of 5 currently in terms of hardware. Geforce Now includes current Nvidia graphics cards, and kills it in power. Stadia blades are built on last gen AMD APUs so as soon as Xbox upgrades their blades they will be 3 out of 5. I imagine PSNOW will also upgrade to PS5 blades, but I have heard nothing about it yet so who knows. Same with Luna, nothing is known. Stadia does not have the hardware crown, and will soon be dropping back.
Access: Stadia is 3rd out of 5 currently in terms of access, with the ability to play on PC, a select group of android mobile devices, or on a TV by buying a Chromecast ultra. Both Amazon Luna and Geforce Now have more options, both allowing play on IOS devices, and Geforce Now also allowing Mac/Chromebooks/Shield. Gamepass Streaming will soon be compatible with PC and IOS, but TV is unknown. PSNow future accessibility plans are unknown. Again, Stadia is not the accessibility leader, and is not showing a push to dominate this area.
Pricing: This is where Stadia gets murdered. Though they have a free tier you are unable to play any games unless you buy them at full price on their store, also you are limited to 1080p gaming in those games. If you signup for Stadia Pro then you get access to around 30 games and you can play in 4k quality with higher framerates (sometimes). But at $10 a month it is 3 out of 5 in cost and, in my opinion, worst of all of them in value. You get no exclusives, a limited amount of games, and you still have to pay full price for any major release you want to play (separate from the subscription cost).
Library: On just straight up available games, Stadia is 4th out of 5. Geforce NOW gives you the largest potential library, followed by PSNOW, then Gamepass Streaming, then finally Stadia. On the other hand for $4 less per month with Luna you get access to more than twice as many games to stream without having to buy them separately, so Stadia might even lose this depending on your perspective.
TLDR: Stadia is winning at exactly nothing at the moment. They have the wonkiest pricing/value system of any of these products, have very limited support from game developers so far, don't own any studios to push their own exclusives, and are about to get stomped hardware wise as soon as Microsoft and Sony upgrade their server blades. They need to decide what they are and what they want to be very soon and push much harder in whatever that direction is.
