Hello all, First, I want to begin with the fact that I am not only a founder, I adore Stadia in general. I also have been singing its praises to anyone who will listen (and many who will not) since ...
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Hello all, First, I want to begin with the fact that I am not only a founder, I adore Stadia in general. I also have been singing its praises to anyone who will listen (and many who will not) since November. I have also been a gamer for many years. Between my friends and me we have owned almost systems in existence. I have had a disturbing realization about the future of Stadia. If they do not start to fix a few things quickly, they will go the way of Atari and Sega. This is abhorrent because I can still play my Atari 2600 games. Yet, with Stadia, when they fold, I will loose the games I have purchased forever. The reason? They do not support some basic promised features (that I have on my PS3). My biggest gripe is with Dolby Digital 5.1. I am not getting Dolby Digital through my Chromecats Ultra into my 7.1 soundbar. I have spent over 3 hours on text chat this weekend with techs who know little about how sound is routed in a home theater. Each time, they told me I needed one of two things... 1) A TV/Reciever that supports eArc or 2) A Home theater system that has an independent Receiver before the Soundbar (I am pretty sure this is not a thing, soundbars mostly use hdmi or optical inputs not raw translated signal). The thought that I should purchase new hardware to play a system that hinges on being hardware independent is ludicrous. I can purchase one or both an XBox series X or a PS5 for significantly less than either a sound system or a tv. Combine that with the frustration of inept techs, the fact that VUDU plays Atmos and Amazon plays DD through my Chromecast just fine, that there are HUGE threads on Redit about this, and that many news outlets and "true" gamers are poised waiting for Stadia to fail, and I quickly realize this is not just about me missing a feature that I had on my PS3, this kind of issue is what makes gaming platforms succeed or fail. And, this is not the only thing in a long list of broken or partially implemented Stadia promises. So, as I mash buttons playing Avengers loving the game and being excited for even more to come this fall, I am left wondering, should I buy the new games from Google at all, or purchase a competitor's product that is guaranteed to work and last longer than 6 months. The second I had that thought, Google lost. This is their first fall with AAA games. If anyone holds back, it will be problematic. If everyone holds back, they are doomed. I am deeply concerned they will loose a whole lot in the months to come. Just ask Atari and Sega.