Decoding Google Stadia

The Google Stadia announcement at GDC was, like many such announcements, light on detail. So for the small community of the cloud gaming interested I thought to decode the announcement as well as I can.

Hardware Platform: Today, the system is in prototype mode, running on Intel based servers and discrete AMD GPUs. Upcoming AMD semi-custom 7nm GPUs – not APUs – will make it possible to virtualize instances for more flexible performance and resolution scaling. This design future-proofs these servers – achieving more performance is a simple matter of allocating more CPU cores and potentially 2 GPUs to a single user instance. Future, faster hardware will allow fewer cores and back to a single GPU. Virtualizing users allows multiple performance and resolution targets.

Video Encoder: The driver for a semi-custom GPU is likely the video encoder. Today the system is using AMD’s H.264 hardware encoder on prototype servers. I believe Google’s VP9 hardware encoding technology is being incorporated into the semi-custom Stadia GPU to achieve 4K60, and designed properly, to allow multiple GPUs to achieve 8K and VR gaming. I likewise believe that AMD will keep this IP for their general market GPUs which will help VP9 proliferate. VP9 is a royalty free codec designed and championed by Google through acquisition and will provide about 25% bandwidth savings vs. H.264. This is good, the Universe wins. 

Scaling: From a business perspective, this design permits multiple qualities of service, but the single GPU remains the big block. My guess is that the target Stadia Server will support 4 virtualized users with 4 GPUs and 2 CPUs which would still be possible in a 1U server chassis target heat/power. But I could be wrong – lots of design options exist from vertical high density stacks to higher density 2U and 4U designs. In a way it doesn’t matter – once Google solves the virtualization problem and GPU allocation, these options open.

Latency: Will be high. No getting around it. I estimate 60-100ms motion to photon with the cloud-edge loop, but I am doing a more detailed latency budget over the coming days. Factors increasing latency include wireless networks – you really want 5G or wired Internet for this – and relatively computationally expensive video encode/decode, exacerbated by a hodgepodge of decoders not latency optimized. TV screens have notoriously high latency HDMI ports. Over time Google and the industry can address this, but for now, the digital world is not optimized for low latency cloud gaming.

Console: One debate that has likely brewed inside Google is whether to embrace the Hybrid model of Microsoft. While unlikely, Google could encase the Stadia hardware in plastic and sell a console with identical to cloud performance and zero developer changes. Wait – Google is launching a cloud platform – why would it launch a game console? The truth is, lots of users have unreliable connectivity and may fear what happens if they do not maintain an active subscription. A console hedges the bet, and they are already doing all work to build the hardware and software platform anyway. But they don’t want to take the wind out of their cloud announcement so look for the console to come later, if at all.

Competition: Microsoft going down both paths – cloud plus console – is the competition. I believe Nintendo is likely to cozy with Microsoft and is being wooed by both players. Sony? Hard to know, I think they need a cloud-dancing partner quick. Valve, Epic and the few traditional game shops/eshops will need to do much more than cling to the past. The Game Store space is in the early stages of unprecedented upheaval. Its coming fast and the technology ante just went up an order of magnitude. Google’s entry will, I believe, have attractive entry prices to ease initial adoption. But users may resist non-ownership, and publishers will resist getting Netflixed and Spotified. Publishers may be intransigent in upcoming content negotiations. 

I hope this was helpful. I work with companies innovating in gaming infrastructure and cloud gaming; I also research and forecast the dynamics and growth of this space. Feel free to reach out.