Google Announces Games Streaming Platform, Stadia, To Open 2019 GDC

After Google's recent hiring of Ubisoft Toronto founder Jade Raymond, the tech giant's interest in the console space became one of the big rumors leading up to this week's Games Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Google ended the speculation Tuesday by unveiling Stadia, a cloud-based service that could change the way users playing video games, as players would be able to access the service from computers, televisions or mobile devices.

To highlight this, Google’s Majd Bakar demoed Stadia onstage with gameplay starting on a Chromebook, moving to a Pixel phone, then a PC and ending on a TV with Chromecast. As the game switched across devices, gameplay picked up from right where the previous device left off.

Stadia will also be able to stream games at 60 frames per second in 4K resolution with HDR (high-dynamic range). To highlight this, Google demoed "Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey" and the upcoming "Doom Eternal," both of which offered state-of-the-art graphics.

The consumer advantage? Users won’t have to spend an exorbitant fee on a powerful PC or high-end console in order to enjoy games at their visual peak.

This is a timely announcement given that the industry has been moving towards more of a digitally driven platform in recent years. Recent sales numbers out of the U.K. with "The Division 2," for example, are indicative of that shift. There's also the growth of PlayStation Now and Xbox Game Pass, which offers hundreds of games to stream in a model similar to Netflix.

While the Stadia doesn’t have a solid release date, it is expected to become available sometime in 2019.