Josh Hendrickson
Stadia, Google’s game streaming service, is closer to a beta than a full-fledged product. That’s evident in its missing features and narrow support for devices. Despite suggesting an “any device anywhere” capability, you could only play on one phone—Google’s Pixel. But starting February 20th, that’s changing. Hopefully, you own a Samsung phone, though.
In our review, we said that Stadia probably isn’t worth paying for yet. But, we don’t think you should count the service out. While it’s missing features, game selection, and frankly device selection, Google is rapidly improving on the service.
Just recently, Stadia announced five new games, including three timed-exclusives, coming to the service soon. And that’s part of a promise to bring 120 new games to the service this year. That helps the game selection, but device choice is still a problem. If you don’t own a Pixel phone or a ChromeOS tablet, you couldn’t play on the go.
Thankfully, that’s changing on February 20th. Stadia is coming to 19 new phones, although 15 of them are from Samsung. Here’s the full list so you can check for yours:
- Samsung Galaxy S8
- Samsung Galaxy S8+
- Samsung Galaxy S8 Active
- Samsung Galaxy Note8
- Samsung Galaxy S9
- Samsung Galaxy S9+
- Samsung Galaxy Note9
- Samsung Galaxy S10
- Samsung Galaxy S10E
- Samsung Galaxy S10+
- Samsung Galaxy Note10
- Samsung Galaxy Note10+
- Samsung Galaxy S20
- Samsung Galaxy S20+
- Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
- Razer Phone
- Razer Phone 2
- ASUS ROG Phone
- ASUS ROG Phone II
You’ll still run into some limitations, of course. Just like using Stadia with the Pixel phone, you can use any Bluetooth controller wirelessly. But for the best experience, you’ll want Stadia’s controller. And currently, you can’t use it wirelessly. You’ll have to connect it to your phone.
That still leaves a lot of phones out of the market, including anything from Apple and other popular manufacturers like OnePlus and LG. But at least the company is continuing to improve and expand on its offerings. We still recommend waiting for the free tier in the meantime.
via Stadia
