Well I had some time to try XCloud and well I'm sorry to say it but Stadia will need a Gamepass answer imo. XCloud is very playable as it is right now. It's limited to the phone for the moment but we know tv and PC are part of the long term plans.
I imagine many will come out and say but it requires an xbox. And all I would answer with that is that that can change. Microsoft easily has the time and money to make their own chrome cast like device if they so choose. And it's not like the stadia controller is extremely cheap either.
And no the pro-games aren't enough as xbox gold already does something similar. After actually trying it Stadia will lose the casual war if they don't have an answer of some sort by xcloud launch I feel.
@NetSage I tried xCloud as well and I agree it's a very good service. However, until they roll out the ability to play on computers / TV, we won't know for sure. Also, it takes a good amount to load the game at the beginning, compared to Stadia where it's practically instant. As someone that purposely switched to SSD for PC and PS4 just because of loading times improvement, this is a big factor for me.
I do agree though, once the game is loaded, the experience is pretty great.
There is an alternative way to get it on android tv and I have it on my nvidia shield so far it works great.
@zuesmos I'm not surprised at all that there are work arounds between their limitations. I mean it wouldn't be great probably but I could have just casted my phone to my tv if I really wanted.
My main goal was to try and wake up the strong Stadia white knights that the rest of the internet isn't just complaining about stadia for the sake of it. From a value of point of view xcloud + gamepass will probably be the best in the industry.
Gamepass is tremendous hands down one of the best moves Microsoft has ever made