Googlebook: Can Google Finally Get Gaming Right?
Google's new device, Googlebook, is set to launch in October with a starting price of $899. The company is touting it as a gaming powerhouse, capable of running over 20,000 titles from mobile and PC. This marks the latest attempt by Google to make a dent in the gaming market.
The device's specs are not entirely new, Android gaming has been around for years, but never felt like a priority for Google. The company tried to make gaming work on its platforms with Chromebooks, which failed to leave a mark. Stadia, Google's online gaming platform, was shut down after three years of struggling.
The author of the article, Ali, has first-hand experience with these failures. As a former Stadia user, he notes that the service suffered from input latency, no offline play, and poor image quality. The official controller also had Bluetooth issues, which felt 'insulting' given its in-house design.
This time around, Google is delegating cloud streaming to Nvidia's GeForce Now. While this may be a learning experience for the company, it raises questions about how committed Google is to gaming as a service line. The author remains skeptical, given past failures and the fact that Android gaming has always felt secondary to other Google initiatives.