Take-Two CEO says Stadia isn’t the game-changer Google promised
Google “overpromised” on what it could deliver with its Stadia game-streaming technology, according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Though Take-Two has a number of games available on the Google Stadia platform, including Red Dead Redemption 2, Zelnick hasn’t been wowed by the supposedly “game-changing” technology so far.
“The launch of Stadia has been slow,” he said, speaking at the Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, as per GameSpot.
“I think there was some overpromising on what the technology could deliver and some consumer disappointment as a result,” he added.
This is likely a reference to Google’s initial claims that games would be running in 4K and at 60fps, as it was soon after revealed that many games, including Take-Two’s own Red Dead Redemption 2 and Bethesda’s Doom Eternal, was instead rendering at 1080p and then upscaled.
Takedown Two
Zelnick notes that Take-Two released three titles for Stadia at launch and it will continue to support streaming services “as long as the business model makes sense.” However, he expressed concern that the target audience of people who want to play video games but don’t own a console isn’t very large.
“Anytime you broaden distribution you potentially broaden your audience, which is why we supported the release of Stadia with three titles initially and will continue to support high-quality streaming services as long as the business model makes sense. Over time I believe streaming will work…”
“The belief that streaming was going to be transformative was based on a view that there were loads of people who really had an interest in interactive entertainment, really wanted to pay for it, but just didn’t want to have a console. I’m not sure that turned out to be the case.”
Though Stadia has got off to a rocky start, the cloud-based service continues to add new titles; Google claims it will add another 100+ games to the Stadia library this year.
The service could soon be available on a lot more devices, too. While it’s currently limited to a small handful of smartphones, including Google’s newer Pixel devices, recently-spotted code in the latest Stadia app for Android suggests support for devices that haven’t yet been “certified” is on the way.
