I bought Cyberpunk on Stadia on release day, since I couldn’t play it anywhere else, and it was actually great for me. The technical issues I ran into were all because the game was buggy, not because the service was bad. The biggest issue was the self self-fulfilling prophecy that Google was going to kill it, and not worth subscribing to (which they eventually did kill because of low usage). I think that if Google had spun out Stadia as it’s own company, it may have succeeded.
Same here, Stadia was great the entire time it lasted. But I have good internet, so that helped. But yeah the killing factor of it ended up being google as you said. Very unfortunate.
I was betting on Stadia being the future of gaming. Without having to mess with hardware or software it was an amazing product. Their service was great, but we all know how it turned out. At least they refunded me all my purchases.
Hah I actually made a profit on their shutting down. Or at least, on Cyberpunk 2077. Bought CP77 and got a free controller + Chromecast bundle, sold the Chromecast for 45 bucks and got Cyberpunk refunded in full. After buying it again on sale through Steam, I had a profit of 15€.
And I still have the controller! The Stadia controllers are awesome.
Even non techie people don’t trust them to keep any new service going, so they have to force people to use their new services, which of course comes with a ton of bad will, and then when people inevitably don’t like this and don’t spend as google has envisioned, they shutter it, continuing the cycle of failing more and more and probably reinforcing internally the idea that the only way to make more money is through enshitification rather than innovation, because they can’t admit to themselves they’ve destroyed their brand image.
I went all in on it… I fully drank that Koolaid and was an early backer, got an extra controller and really thought it was going to be amazing. But their whole launch was so bungled that by the time I actually got it I was so disillusioned with the whole company that I couldn’t enjoy it. It sucked to have bought into the kickstarter and financed the project, and then see the product on the shelves at Target while I was still waiting on mine to be delivered. I had mine for a couple of months before reselling it at a loss.
Several years later when Stadia was announced I felt that little familiar glimmer of hope pop up, but I didn’t let myself get too excited for it. I did eventually get a couple of Stadia controllers and really enjoyed that service (and I still use those controllers today).
It sucked to have bought into the kickstarter and financed the project, and then see the product on the shelves at Target while I was still waiting on mine to be delivered.
Shit, I didn’t realize it got that bad. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t hear more rage about that online at the time.
Oh dang, it was my media PC until 2017, when the switch took over its role, IIRC. Definitely got my money’s worth out of it even if there were no games lmao
Ouya wasn’t all bad though! Some great games came out of it. Towerfall and Bombsquad are still favorite party games in my house. No Brakes Valet and Hidden in Plain Sight also still get played occasionally.
Fair. I did use it for emulating NES and SNES, but the controller connection was horrible, so I found it easier to use the Raspberry Pi.
Now it’s in my shelf along with my other consoles: C64, PS1-4 (5 is in the living room), PSP, DS and gaming stuff and collectibles. People usually ask about it, lol.
The controller was absolute garbage! The analog sticks would get snagged where the battery covers split. Batteries on the front for who knows why.
Lol mine’s living in the closet now and thankfully all those games have released for the PC Gabecube. I’ll keep the hardware as a fun experiment in history though.
heh, I have Superbook for the exact same purpose! (for the uninitated: it was a “laptop” which used your phone/tablet/etc as the tech, it was basically just a 1080p screen and keyboard for a phone).
Mine took 3-4 factory resets and firmware flashes to get working, and then the damn thing gave up the ghost the same night and hasn’t worked since… not that it has any real use anyway. Good buy /s
This is my biggest regret purchase lmao. Which is good. But yeah I basically never used it. Very unlike me because I would rather eat my bad decision. But it’s was so laggy I turned it off and waited for updates that never came. Took me years to finally throw it away.
I loved mine! Did exactly what I bought it for, emulation on my TV and playing media from my server. Replaced it with a Shield eventually, but don’t regret backing it on Kickstarter.
Because the Xbox was built in secret while Microsoft and Sega collaborated on the Dreamcast. It’s actually somewhat compatible with Dreamcast games but MS never wanted to allow that feature.
Also the Duke is the only comfortable controller I have ever used.
The Dreamcast controller is ugly as sin but surprisingly comfortable to hold. It must have the widest delta between looks and ergonomics of any controller.
I have a list of Metroidvanias I’ve started but never completed. The only one that managed to hold my attention to completion that wasn’t an actual Metroid title was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Which is a shame, because Ori and The Blind Forest is beautiful and Hollowknight is very cute, but neither could really hold my attention.
I have that and an ‘OnLive founding member’ T-shirt that I wear to tech events. Especially when I suspect there’s going to be something tone-deaf getting launched.
Played a lot of these in the last two years, with Ender Magnolia and Nine Sols being my favorites among them.
All-time I think I’d still go with Super Metroid, despite its age and having completed multiple playthroughs I still end up playing for hours anytime I boot it.
Honorable mentions for Rabi-Ribi (don’t let the cutesy anime artstyle fool you, this is a fantastic non-linear game with some of the best boss battles in the genre), the recent Momodoragames and the Team Ladybug games (with Touhou Luna Nights being my favorite of the three).
FYI Nine Sols has a “Story Mode” that lets you tweak damage numbers (and AFAIK only locks you out of a single achievement). Knowing that exists was one of the reasons I decided to try the game despite my PTSD from Silksong.
I ended absolutely loving it even though it was crazy hard, and haven’t lowered the difficulty yet. Though right now I’m stuck at the last boss and that may finally force me to do so. 😀
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