Cloud Game Streaming in India

When Stadia was announced back in March 2019, I was the only one among my friends and peers to be excited. I believed that Cloud Game Streaming is the future and Stadia could be the pillar that holds up that promise. The prospect of Gaming anywhere, on any screen, without relying on top-end Hardware and your high-speed internet doing all the heavy lifting tingled my gaming bones. While I still believe that Game Streaming is the future, Stadia has left me disappointed.

We are on the cusp of the next-generation console launches and within a few months, Indian Gamers will have their hands on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Sony’s Playstation 5. With the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 30 Series Graphics Cards, things are looking up for PC Gamers as well. The Ampere Architecture looks promising and the benchmarks for RTX 3080 and its amazing price to performance ratio have already proved that the RTX 30 Series is going to be a huge hit in the PC market. On the Red side, AMD is all set to announce the Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards on October 28th. While we do not know much about the performance scale of the new AMD cards, next-generation cards usually mean good news to consumers. More competition means better prices for buyers.

And it’s not just Graphic cards that are getting upgraded. AMD’s Ryzen Zen 2-based processors CPUs have already proven their worth and the new Zen 3-based desktop processors (rumored to be called Ryzen 5000 series, skipping the Ryzen 4000 name) will be announced on October 8th.

This means a paradigm shift in the world of gaming. Happening now. Stadia has not even announced any India launch dates. While I understand that India is not yet considered a Gaming Powerhouse, India is a massive market just waiting to be tapped. Inexpensive and unlimited Internet is now available in all metropolitan cities of India.

Amazon’s Luna has now entered the Cloud Game Streaming WrestleMania as a new contender. With the might of its legendary AWS Cloud Computing Service, Luna is all set to give Stadia a tough fight.

There are other Cloud Game Streaming options like Nvidia’s GeForce Now but even those options are not available in India.

Is this all too little too late for India? It remains to be seen. As of now, gamers in India have to wait till Stadia or Luna or any other major Cloud Game Streamer opens its doors to India. I am still hopeful.