Google Stadia has been the topic of many conversations over the past few months. The company has been making announcements like mad, and the most recent announcement reveals the all-new Google Stadia Party Stream, which brings several new quality of life features to the users of the platform.
Google Stadia is already known for its seamless streaming features, but with this new update, streaming has become easier and more manageable than ever before. Whether you are just streaming your games for a few friends or for the world to see, the update now allows gamers to swap seamlessly from one game to another, or even from one device to another without ending the stream.
Though most Streamers choose to use other means of streaming their content via Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, or the like via OBS or Bandicam, at one point Google Stadia couldn't keep up. The reason was that you could not just swap games or devices without closing the stream out completely, which meant losing the viewer count and immersion of your friends or followers. Well, now that has been fixed within this new update, as gamers can be playing one game during the stream, get bored and swap to another all without having to disable the stream in the process. More so, there will be a little prompt that pops up when you switch devices that asks whether you want to continue the stream from the new device. While to some, this may seem like a minuscule change, for those who live stream to millions of followers per day on platforms such as YouTube, this changes their entire dynamic; they can keep streaming from whatever device and with whatever game they so choose to play without losing those precious views in the process.
Party Stream is also a new feature being implemented within this new Google Stadia Update, where you can share your progress with your closest friends only, up to nine to be exact. This way, your friends and family can watch you play in a more intimate setting, rather than on a large platform. The Party Stream can also consist of other players, not just viewers, meaning you and up to four friends can stream while five friends hang out and watch the boss fights, PVP or whatever gameplay is going on at the time. There can only be a total of ten people in the Party Stream at once, which can be a mix of players and viewers but can only add up to ten at a time.
Even the spectators can get in on the action, as the voice chat features and emojis are still available to those who are just watching the gameplay. Those who are the original streamers of the games can see notifications from those who wish to join the stream or have sent chats in, which allows the streamer to interact with those watching all while playing their game of choice, which is a pretty neat feature in itself.
Though Google Stadia has been in the spotlight for the past few months, whether it's shooting down rumors or closing down some of their brick-and-mortar Stadia demos, they have had a few interesting features and updates that really make the platform stand out in a more positive way. The addition of several new games has also kept their names at the forefront of releases and updates to Cloud gaming platforms.
