People have started spending almost their entire day at home due to the current coronavirus pandemic situation. Although social distancing is a vital factor to steer away from getting infected from the virus, spending an entire day for a few weeks might be challenging. But companies are helping out people to work it out. Google has finally released the free tier of its gaming service Stadia as promised but there’s more.
In a bid to curb people getting numb being in self-quarantine or isolation, Google has expanded the free tier for its gaming service Stadia allowing users access to the platform for free. Yep, Google will take care of the charges and you can simply use your Google account to sign it and avail the free tier Google Stadia which offers 1080p quality, 60fps, and stereo surround along with a couple of gaming titles available free. Of course, you can buy more games from its store and play without any hassle.
Google is also introducing two months of free subscription to its Google Stadia Pro membership that gives you access to over nine games including Thumper, Destiny 2: The Collector, GRID, and others at 4K resolution. Same as the free tier, you can buy more games and you’ll keep it even if you cancel the subscription later on. The two months free subscription of Google Stadia Pro is available in 14 countries for both new and existing users so if you already have the subscription, Google won’t charge you a dime for the next two months.
Once the two months, free subscription is over, users can pay $9.99 a month to stay and subscribe to the service or choose to cancel it as well.
Google Stadia takes various factors such as in-home or local internet connections and others into consideration thereby throttling the resolution and other features that work best with the available quality of the internet. Since everyone is at home working and doing stuff online now, Google has brought down the default resolution from 4K to 1080p for the Pro users although they can still jack it up to 4K.
According to Phil Harrison, Chief of Google Stadia, the majority of people won’t even gauge the difference between 1080p and 4K resolution with their Pro subscription. It is for the time being and once the situation improves, I expect things will go normal as well.
At this moment, the two months free subscription for both new and existing customers is available in 14 countries. It could take 48 hours depending upon your locality so that you avail it. On the other hand, the free tier is available right at this moment and you can subscribe to it although not just in every region so wait and check out Google Stadia’s site if the free tier is available or not.