Google Stadia will launch in November, in 14 different territories including the US, UK and Canada, with at least 31 games from 21 different publishers, for an initial “Founder’s Edition” price of $130 for a hardware starter kit with three months of premium service, and $10 a month afterwards. There’s a separate free tier coming in 2020.
First thing’s first. Of those 14 different territories Australia is NOT one of them. In fact if you even try to go to the Stadia website from Australia you just get bounced to Google’s store.
Second, the idea of Stadia is that you will pay a monthly subscription fee of US$9.99 (A$14.50) to use the service and then an additional cost per title to play it. Unlike Netflix or Microsoft’s GamePass this is very much NOT a subscription service with an all-you-can-eat buffet of games.
There is mention of a free tier coming in 2020 at some point but will be throttled to allow only stereo sound and 1080p resolution, which for my mind would be good enough for a lot of people.
Bandwidth wise, there’s no reason Australian’s couldn’t be using the service. The recommended minimum is 10Mbps for 720p video with just 35Mbps required for 4K@60fps with 5.1 Surround Sound.
Game wise there’s a decent list with triple A titles from Bethesda, Bungie, Square Enix, Ubisoft and 2K making an appearance in Google’s announcement. As to the continued addition and support of those title moving forward time will tell as the service matures.
Early adopters (in supported regions) can splash out on the “Founders Edition” beginning this November when the service launches. Included is a copy of Destiny 2, a controller and 3 months of service for US$129.
Source: Google Stadia detailed: price, release date and the first games you’ll stream – The Verge