Google's Stadia is a lot of "Linux-Based Gaming Devices."
The value proposition (to Google) is obvious: not having to pay for thousands of Windows licenses, and reducing the number of OS kernels in Google's cloud infrastructure.
If you consider Android as "Linux-Based" then that's billions of "Linux-Based Gaming Devices."
Yeah, a year of Stadia is like two first-party Switch games, and that's ignoring the $299 cost of the Switch (assuming you can even find one at list price!) vs. $99 for a Stadia Premiere set (chromecast + controller.) And that's ignoring Stadia's free subscription tier as well as cheaper hardware options.
But Stadia's game library is small, and needless to say it doesn't have Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, or Ring Fit Adventure... ;-)
So for the 6-to-106 set, I think the Switch wins, but Stadia is still pretty interesting...
They give your 4-5 new games a month for cost of sub. Many of these are good. Also the management of logins and accounts and time to playing is less than switch.
It's funny no company is optimizing time to play and polluting consoles with stupid logins. As a parent being able to let them play immediately and get back to thinking is the most important thing to me.
The value proposition (to Google) is obvious: not having to pay for thousands of Windows licenses, and reducing the number of OS kernels in Google's cloud infrastructure.
If you consider Android as "Linux-Based" then that's billions of "Linux-Based Gaming Devices."