This is a fantastic move by Google. The war for gaming as a service will be on the platform level and something that Google is well positioned to win in. Not saying that Steam, Nintendo, Nvidia won't be some serious contenders as well but the outlook for gamers is quite positive.
I expect to see what the web went through in the early 90s as far as turmoil goes. Lots of platforms with all their quirks and developers getting behind various ones. Eventually (hopefully?) some standards enabling cross platform development of stream gaming. Bandwidth/latency still needs to play catch up but 5G is getting there. Cellular connections are getting more and more stable while landline methods are lagging.
I expect to see each platform playing to their strengths with Google pushing their expertise in infrastructure and Nvidia with their hardware. Also expect to see the space get even more crowded as traditional players join the market.
Considering how poorly Google's external developer support has historically been, I think it's safe to say that without Google dog-fooding Stadia it's going to sputter and die.
Cross platform is old school. You can send email between providers, call people on different phones, and access websites without knowing what kind of server they're on, but can you place a video call from Skype to Google Duo? Send messages from Slack to Discord? Tweet something using your Microsoft account? The open web is dead, it's all big companies' silos now.
I expect to see what the web went through in the early 90s as far as turmoil goes. Lots of platforms with all their quirks and developers getting behind various ones. Eventually (hopefully?) some standards enabling cross platform development of stream gaming. Bandwidth/latency still needs to play catch up but 5G is getting there. Cellular connections are getting more and more stable while landline methods are lagging.
I expect to see each platform playing to their strengths with Google pushing their expertise in infrastructure and Nvidia with their hardware. Also expect to see the space get even more crowded as traditional players join the market.