STORY: YouTube video makes comparison of available titles on cloud gaming services. This surprising video arguably shows Stadia has more chart topping games than cloud peers.
Chatter within the Stadia community would suggest that the platform is losing significant ground with it’s target demographic. That same chatter also suggests that the demo would be “better” served gaming on other cloud platforms. These platforms include: Amazon Luna, GeForce Now and/or Xbox Cloud Streaming.
However a new YouTube video aims to challenge the veracity of those claims. A new StadiaDosage video uses monthly NPD data to prove it’s point. This analyst data ^ lists the most popular games, based upon sales, in North America. Why is this important? Well, Stadia GM Phil Harrison spoke of the target demographic in Stadia’s early start. That demographic appears largely to be a more conscious gamer. This gamer limits their choices based upon certain convenience factors, such as economics and time.
The video takes the monthly NPD gaming data and compares games on each cloud platform, to the chart topping items. The specific charts focused on are: Top 20 games for September 2021, YTD top 10 games for 2021, Rolling calendar top 10 Games (September 2020 thru September 2021). The games being measured from these charts are the multi platform titles only.
The results are as follows:
- CURRENT MONTH TOP 20 (CHARTING MULTI PLATFORM GAMES)
- Stadia – 45%
- GFN – 18%
- Luna – 9%
- Xbox Cloud Streaming – 0%
- YEAR TO DATE TOP 10 (CHARTING MULTI PLATFORM GAMES)
- Stadia – 50%
- GFN – 17%
- Luna – 17%
- Xbox Cloud Streaming – 17% ^^
- ROLLING CALENDAR TOP 10 (CHARTING MULTI PLATFORM GAMES)
- Stadia – 57%
- GFN – 14%
- Luna – 14%
- Xbox Cloud Streaming – 14% ^^
The Stadia results may surprise many. What may be equally surprising , if not more, is the fact that Xbox Cloud Streaming registered at the highest, registered at 17%. This is surprising because Xbox within circles of the cloud gaming community is suggested to have the most popular games on the cloud. However, there’s something maybe more puzzling. Popular game Minecraft was included on each chart. However, Minecraft, a game developed by Microsoft, is not on Xbox Cloud Streaming.
It will be interesting to see if future NPD postings will wield much different results. Nonetheless, it appears Stadia has the most games desired by its stated core demographic. Let’s see if the platform can grow on these percentages.
^ = NPD does not calculate F2P game data
^^ = Correction made 10/20/2021 – MLB 21 tabulated for Xbox Cloud Streaming in YTD & Rolling Calendar Year percentages ~Credit: @Makerofchaos YouTube.
