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Google has been busy sharing additional details about its upcoming game streaming service Stadia, clearing up some confusion in the process. Stadia’s pro subscription tier, which will cost $10 per month, won’t be a Netflix-type subscription service. However, subscribers will get free games at the rate of about a title per month.
That’s according to Stadia director of product Andrey Doronichev, who took to Reddit to answer questions from gamers this week as part of one of the site’s crowd-sourced AMA interviews. During the AMA, he said:
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“To be clear, Stadia Pro is not ‘Netflix for Games’ like some people have mentioned, a closer comparison would be like Xbox Live Gold or Playstation Plus. The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, 5.1 sound, exclusive discounts and access to some free games. Roughly one free game per month give or take. Starting with Destiny 2 (yay!).”
Stadia’s Pro tier will launch in November of 2019 for consumers who also buy Google’s Stadia Founder’s Edition hardware bundle. Priced $129, the bundle includes the Stadia controller, as well as a Chromecast Ultra TV streaming adapter and 3 months worth of Stadia Pro service.
Stadia is a cloud streaming service, meaning that consumers won’t need to download games to a game console to play. Instead, Google will render the games in the cloud, making it possible to run high-end video games on inexpensive hardware. In addition to Chromecast Ultra, Stadia games will also run on mobile devices, and even Chrome browsers installed on desktop PCs.
In addition to the pro tier, Google will also make a base tier without the need for a subscription available next year. To further clear up the differences between the 2 tiers, the company tweeted out a comparison infographic Friday:
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