Hard to believe, but Google’s gaming platform Stadia is already in its third year and can continue to grow in terms of game selection. But can the user base grow, how many players does Stadia have and how popular is the platform? A current survey does not provide any concrete answers, but it can come up with quite impressive values for the Google product.
At Stadia there is only black and white: either you are an enthusiastic user and passionate advocate or you are a declared opponent and are looking forward to being discontinued soon. Both sides have good arguments, but in the eyes of the public, the latter group has the greater share. I have already described the future of Stadia here in the blog with a look into my own crystal ball, which actually looks quite rosy. However, this applies more to the technology or the product behind the product.
But the gaming platform itself also seems to have a wider reach than many observers would believe. If you believe a current survey, Stadia can reach a surprisingly large group of users and doesn’t have to hide from the big names. The title of the survey is a bit provocative, but it’s all about the numbers. Almost 1000 players were asked which gaming services they used between January and December 2021.
It’s a proverbial comparison of apples and pears, but it’s not so much about the gaming platform itself, but more about the subscription model and how the games are purchased. Just take a look at the result for yourself, which lists answers for Germany, the UK and the USA. Apparently, US users are more adventurous and use several services at the same time.
After all, 13 percent of all German players surveyed gave Stadia a chance, in the USA it is even 20 percent. This also includes the users who have looked in once and never come back – but this also applies to all other offers. This puts Stadia just behind Apple Arcade and doesn’t have to hide from big names from PlayStation Plus to Xbox Game Pass to Nintendo and Amazon.
Xbox Game Pass, which will be much more relevant very soon, has double the approval rating for Stadia. However, the Xbox has also been on the market for many years, it is a strong, established brand, the product is deeply integrated into Windows and it is always present simply because of the voucher cards in the supermarket. In my opinion, Stadia doesn’t need to hide at all in comparison. Especially not if you include the negative image, for which Google itself is not entirely innocent due to numerous “wrong” decisions.
If Stadia is really more successful than you would think from the public image, it might help if Google itself gives numbers. Sometimes that can work wonders…