Game Streaming: A Cost Effective Future?

Game streaming is the future! We all keep hearing that and frankly it makes sense. Netflix and Hulu have dominated the movie and TV industry with streaming so it’s only logical that video games will follow that path. On the surface this sounds great; less hardware means you won’t have to buy the next big gaming console for $500+ and $60 for every other game. In turn, this will bring gaming to a wider audience that otherwise couldn’t afford this large price tags.

With the current PlayStation Now and the announcements of Xcloud, Stadia, Orion, Uplay, as well as Apple and Amazon’s plans to release their services, there’s going to be no shortage of game streaming anytime soon. That being said, what will these game streaming services look like and what impact are they going to have on our wallets?

Stadia recently released some details on what their streaming service Stadia will consist of. As of right now, Stadia is set to launch this November with a price tag of $130 and will come with one limited edition night blue controller, a Google Chromecast Ultra, three months of Stadia Pro for yourself plus a friend, and first crack at a Founder’s Stadia Name. For each month afterwards, the cost of maintaining your subscription will be $10.

So right off the bat for the first year, we are looking at around $220. Now personally, I am a big fan of Tom Clancy games - Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Rainbow 6, and others. During the Ubisoft E3 conference this year, they announced that their Uplay streaming service will be compatible with Stadia beginning in 2020. Uplay will be $15/month and will include 100+ games as well as new releases which actually sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I highly doubt my Stadia subscription will include Uplay as well. If I decide a year into my Stadia subscription I love it and now I want Uplay as well, adding that $15/month after the second year will bump up what I’ve paid into game streaming for 2 years up to $520.

So looking to the past, Xbox One came out November 22, 2013 and I still play this pretty regularly. Just in case you haven’t noticed, it’s 2019 now which means I have been playing for 6 years and still show no signs of stopping anytime soon. Using the calculations from before for roughly the same amount of time I’d be looking at spending approximately $1,810!! This isn’t even adding any games that I would potentially be buying with this streaming service. I can understand that I’ve bought a few games for the Xbox but in no way have I come close to dropping almost 2k on that console with all the games I’ve picked up.

All in all, it’s easy to see the convenience of having the ability to play almost anywhere on any device but at the same time I’m just not sure the cost is going to justify that freedom at the moment. The great thing about competition between all these different companies is that we will likely see some sort of price drop in the future. Maybe you disagree and more power to you but then again, I also bought a Nintendo Switch that I love so I’m already playing anywhere at any time!

~Greg Silvers - Xbox Gamertag: EventualCoast8 / PSN: Zero3511

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