STORY: Google’s cloud gaming service behind a major partnership involving the Warner Bros title. We now see Stadia tech powering Batman Arkham Knight in AT&T mobile deal
Initiatives Phil Harrison, GM of Stadia, has mentioned are rolling out in a major way. These initiatives were noted in the transition letter explaining their pivot from in-house game development . In such, Stadia’s planned expansion was addressed. This expansion involves various partners who would benefit in utilizing the praised Stadia technology for cloud streaming. In the letter it has been noted as follows:
In 2021, we’re expanding our efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology and deliver games directly to their players. We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools. We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry.
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What does this mean if you’re a current or future Stadia gamer? You can continue playing all your games on Stadia and Stadia Pro, and we’ll continue to bring new titles from third parties to the platform. We’re committed to the future of cloud gaming, and will continue to do our part to drive this industry forward.
New Day
Fast forward to current day. We now see the makings of a landmark deal for Google via Stadia technology. It was noted first by 9to5 Google that a new version of the critically acclaimed video game, Batman Arkham Knight , seemed to be powered by Google’s cloud gaming technology. The game is being offered to AT&T mobile consumers per their new streaming service. 9to5’s article notes the following:
Digging a bit deeper, while “Stadia” is not mentioned by name anywhere on the page, we’ve found that the necessary web requests to start streaming connect to Google’s servers and make mention of “cloudcast” which is one of the internal codenames for Stadia’s technology. All signs point to this being “Stadia” in everything but name.
They’ve even received confirmation from AT&T directly, that the game is indeed powered by Stadia:
An AT&T representative confirmed to 9to5Google that the Batman: Arkham Knight demo — officially a “gaming experience brought to you by the AT&T Network” — is indeed running on Stadia’s streaming technology.
PNTSNetwork’s own ‘Peter Cottontail’ got his hands on the game via the new AT&T service. He seemed to be very pleased and astounded of its performance.
Ya’ll JFC pic.twitter.com/kXVIx3dGLE
— Peter Cottontail (@4Most_gg) October 20, 2021
What it means
The community has mixed concerns regarding this move. There are many who wonder if the game will be brought to Stadia’s business to consumer (B2C) efforts as well. There are those also concerned if this is indicative of the company going completely white-label. However, many have equally pointed out that per Phil Harrison’s letter in February quoted prior, Stadia stated their commitment of keeping up it’s B2C efforts, while pursuing deals such as these.
It will be interesting to see if this leads to more gamers warming up to cloud gaming and Stadia. If so, this could be huge jumpstart for the platform.
AT&T subscribers can try the game out here.
