Google's rumored gaming announcement was announced this morning during the Google keynote at the Game Developers Conference.
Called Stadia, the new generation gaming platform leverages Google's 20 years of data center and network capabilities across 7,500+ edge node locations globally to change how people access and enjoy video games across multiple platforms, including TV, laptop, desktop, tablet, or mobile phones. No downloads, updates, patches, or installs. The goal is to make these games available at up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second with HDR and surround sound.
Specs for Stadia include custom AMD GPUs with 56 compute units, 10.7 TFlops with applications using the Vulkan API on 2.7 Ghz hyperthreaded x86 CPUs. Games will have 16 GB of RAM available and will run on Linux.
Stadia includes a WiFi connected controller with built-in capture and Google Assistant buttons. The controller has a direct connection through WiFi to the data centers driving Stadia for the best possible gaming performance.
It will launch later this year in the US, Canada, UK, and much of Europe.
There is not much information yet how developers bring their games to Stadia, although it appears they are targeting AAA developers to start. Google is working with a variety of Middleware partners, and more announcements are certain to roll out through the rest of this week.
Watch the keynote:
