Google’s Stadia game streaming service went live in November… but at the time it was only open to Stadia Pro subscribers.

Starting today Stadia is available for everyone in 14 supported countries. And Google is throwing in a free 2-month Stadia Pro subscription.

Already paying for Stadia Pro? Google won’t charge you for the next two months.

You’ll need a Google account to sign up, and if you don’t see an option to sign up at Stadia.com, that’s because Google says it’s getting the ball rolling today, but it could take 48 hours before the rollout is complete.

In case you need a refresher, Stadia Pro lets you stream a selection of games for no additional charge, while non-Pro users can purchase individual titles to stream to a phone, tablet, PC (via a web browser) or TV (via a Chromecast Ultra).

Under normal circumstances a Stadia Pro subscription also nets you 4K/60fps video streaming, HDR support, and 5.1 channel audio. But Google notes that it’s temporarily changing the default screen resolution to 1080p to reduce internet congestion during the coronavirus pandemic.

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8 replies on “Google is opening Stadia to everyone (in 14 countries, and offering 2-months of free Stadia Pro)”

  1. Finally! (Assuming of course that this means that at the end of the two months you can continue with your free lower tier and they don’t kick you off the service if you don’t pony up for the premium subscription).

    Now, I just have to wait for BG3 and Cyberpunk to launch.

    1. So the website link was not showing up to allow me to sign up, but I installed the app on my android phone and signed up through that. I now have the thing.

      Dat laaaaag, though.

      In fairness, I should futz around with my wonky wifi a bit before I write the whole thing off, but the first impression was quite brutal.

      On the plus side, you dont’ actually need the Google Chrome browser on your PC. Chromium and Brave on Linux work just fine. So basically I would expect any desktop Chromium-based browser to work.

      1. Further observations:

        1. It’s a very good idea to play on devices / platforms where Google supports hardware acceleration for Chrome – i.e. not Linux.

        2. You probably want to keep to devices which have native hardware decoding for vp9 – so Kaby Lake (7th gen) and above.

        3. A 35Mb/s connection will allow you play chill titles like Gylt and stuff well enough. But you should not try to play Destiny 2 on that kind of connection, and certainly not over wifi.

        All in all, this thing works well enough for calm single player titles (which is perfectly fine with me), provided you do have a solid internet connection.

        The limiting factor seems to be the state of the Internet infrastructure at the moment.

    1. Incorrect.

      When the “sign up” button appears in your region you can play with whatever hardware you want: laptop, phone, whatever. No controller needed.

      1. “whatever hardware you want”… does that apply to my xbox or playstation? I have controllers for those and they are already connected to my TV.

        1. Connect your phone / pc to your TV, and you’re good to go 😛

          And if you do that, you can also use your controllers from your console provided they connect to your device.

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