Google Stadia can now be used from an app on LG TVs: a glimpse of that likely future without physical consoles

Video game streaming will continue to exist. Google Stadia, nvidia The right connection can democratize access to video games.

The first step has been taken on this road. It can already be played in the cloud from any device, whether it’s a mobile phone, a computer or a tablet, but the TV is still a bit lonely. To play games in the Microsoft cloud from your TV, you need Xbox (or connect your laptop to the TV), NVIDIA GeForce Now and Shield TV (or connect your laptop again) and Google Stadia, Chromecast and Stadia controllers (or Android TV / Google TV). Or at least so far.

Moreover, as planned, Google Stadia has officially landed on LG TV 2020 and 2021 and is equipped with webOS 5.0 or higher. It does this as a native application of webOS, in short, it allows us to play the service’s games directly from the TV. No official controller is needed, just a Bluetooth controller and a good internet connection. At Xataka, we have had the opportunity to test it, and this is also our experience.

The TV as a streaming console

Currently, Google Stadia is only available as an application on LG TVs, but it can also be accessed from TVs with Google TV and Android TV. For example, this includes TVs from Sony, TCL, Philips, mid-range Panasonic and Xiaomi. As far as LG is concerned, the application can be used on TVs with webOS 5.0 and 6.0 in the 22 countries currently operated by Google Stadia. The full list can be found at this link. The TV we tested for this service was a 55-inch LG OLED CX.

To play Google Stadia, we must download the app, log in with our Google account, and connect to the controller. There are multiple options: use a Stadia controller (connect to Google’s servers via WiFi) or connect the controller via Bluetooth or USB (PlayStation, Xbox or any other compatible controller). Not all LG TVs have Bluetooth connectivity. We used an Xbox One controller connected via a USB cable.

Needless to say, in order to play games, you need to always connect your TV to the Internet. Stadia requires a connection speed of at least 10 Mbps, but to play in 4K HDR (content only for Stadia Pro subscribers), at least 35 Mbps is required. These are not particularly demanding, but it is worth keeping in mind. As someone who often plays streaming games, my personal recommendation is to connect the device via WiFi, in this case the TV.

That said, let’s look at how the service behaves. The interface is similar to what we have in the browser and Chromecast version. To browse the games, we use the controller and start them are still as simple as before: select the title, and that’s it. The waiting time is still reduced. In short, the experience of Google Stadia is similar to our experience on other devices.

We have played TV connected to the Internet via WiFi, and the experience is very good. We may like Google Stadia’s business model more or less, but as we all know, the service has its advantages and disadvantages, works well and provides stable gameplay. Personally, I have finished Red Dead Redemption 2 on Google Stadia, and I don’t remember any crashes or performance issues at any time.

The problem with Google Stadia is that not all games are rendered in 4K at 60 FPS. Yes, we can know when the connection allows us to play with this graphics quality, but if the game is displayed in this way, there is no way to know. On this basis, we can play “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey”, “Red Dead Redemption 2” and “Dust 5” without any problems. The service responded correctly, with minimal delay (as shown in the video below), and overall, the experience was very transparent.

What do I mean by transparency? We did not notice that we were playing streaming media. Well-trained eyes will definitely notice the results of the streaming (the teeth are seen on some edges, the texture is not well expressed), but if we just want to play uncomplicated, Google Stadia provides a good overall Experience. It is not perfect, far from it, but it does work.

Physical consoles and their probable expiration date

Although Google Stadia does still have room for improvement, the fact that being able to access this service directly from the TV app gives us a foresight of what might happen. Not now, not next year, maybe not even in five or ten years, but if we are used to listening to music and watching movies or series in streaming media, then it can be expected that sooner or later, ultra-high-speed Internet connections will be daily Part of our lives, we will also get used to playing games in streaming media.

The TV is the final frontier, the room in the house where the physical console is supreme. However, as we have already mentioned on a certain occasion, our next console may not be the console, but the TV itself, and Google Stadia’s native application is a step forward on this road.

There are some areas for improvement in streaming media. After all, games executed on local machines, such as consoles or PCs, have better graphics quality than the cloud provides us. The reason is simple: streaming means compression, and compression means quality degradation. But this is the current situation, and we will see what the future holds. A few years ago, it seemed impossible to play 1440p from the cloud at 120 FPS, and we have seen that it is entirely possible.

There are signs that the future of video games will develop in this direction. Google Stadia is already running locally on LG TVs (it is not stated whether there are plans to introduce the application to other TV operating systems). Microsoft also confirmed that it is developing applications for Microsoft Cloud Gaming TV, and Nvidia has developed a native application for some LG TVs. There is still a lot of work to be done, but everything shows that this is the future of video games, good or bad.