[brocket]

I signed up for the free Stadia trial they offered awhile back. I wanted to get back into gaming, don't have any hardware to run modern games and have a fast fiber connection at home. I seemed like the ideal target user.

I spun up a classic, Serious Sam and immediately was disappointed. It looked okay 95% of the time but would randomly get tearing and input lag at critical moments when enemies appeared. I tried on different hardware and different connections and it was all unusable. I think the issue is even a minor lag in FPS games ruins the experience. Forget about playing competitive multiplayer games like PUBG or Counter-Strike.

I ended up finding an unexpected alternative. Microsoft offers Xbox All Access plan as low as $23 dollars per month for physical console + game pass ultimate. To me that has been a much more compelling offer considering I own the console after and gave me immediate access to over hundred games to play locally (including great AAA titles), a fantastic way to get back into gaming. Also, I found out you can plug in a keyboard and mouse for FPS games. Seeing smooth low-latency 4K games is so refreshing and stark contrast to Stadia.

At this point I don't really understand Stadia's target market. It caters to such a tiny intersection of groups that it's almost nobody. Stadia might stick around as a niche for awhile, but it's never going to be the majority of gamers first choice since running games locally is such a superior experience.

[LUmBULtERA]

> Microsoft offers Xbox All Access plan as low as $23 dollars per month for physical console + game pass ultimate.

Where are you able to buy this? It's sold out everywhere when I just looked.

[brocket]

There are occasionally refreshes at US retailers that sell All Access plan, I snagged one from Target. Admittedly the industry, including PlayStation and NVIDIA, is struggling to keep hardware inventory in stock worse than the typical next gen transition because of COVID, but in a few months they will probably be a lot easier to find.

If you can't wait you could do a trial or couple months of Stadia (or GeForce Now, Shadow, etc.) until you can get your hands on one. Or play retro and indie games on your old hardware in the meantime, that's what I did. :)