A few months ago, Google announced its subscription gaming platform named Google Stadia. When launched, it seemed that the company rushed the launch with an unfinished product, probably to compete against Apple Arcade.
Google has been updating the platform since its launch and now the company has officially announced support for 18 more smartphones. This means that the service is no longer exclusive to Google’s Pixel lineup of phones.
Here is the list of smartphones that have now received support for Google Stadia.
- Samsung: Galaxy S8, S8+, S8 Active, Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S9, S9+, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S10, S10+, Galaxy Note 10, Note 10+, Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra
- ASUS: ROG Phone, ROG Phone II
- Razer: Razr Phone, Phone II
Further, the company has confirmed that Stadia will support any wireless gamepad via Bluetooth connection for these phones, except with the Stadia controller which need to be plugged in directly. It has also added that the company is working on methods to connect Stadia controller using Wi-Fi to browsers and mobile.
The cloud gaming industry is gaining footing and every such service, including Stadia, xCloud and GeForce Now, is figuring out game-breaking latency issues and dips in fidelity. As for Stadia, Google has ambitious goals with promised features like seamless 4K streams and games shareable via links but so far the company had more misses than hits.
While Google Stadia now has support for more devices, it is still very far away from others. Microsoft’s xCloud service supports any Android device running Android 6.0 or higher while NVIDIA’s GeForce Now can work on any smartphone with 2 GB RAM and Android 5.0 or higher.
