Google Stadia Won't Have Stream Connect, Family Sharing, and More at Launch

As we mentioned earlier in the week, Google Stadia is just around the corner - five short days away, by my count. We already know that the platform’s selection of games at-launch leave much to be desired, but during an AMA on Reddit, we learned that the launch library wasn’t the only thing lackluster about the Stadia at launch. Turns out, there’s a whole lot the Stadia will be missing for a good long while.

For one, the Stream Connect feature, which allowed people to actually play with one another, won’t be ready at launch, although it’s supposed to be around sometime later this year. “Crowd Play” and “State Share”, other highly-flaunted features, will show up sometime in 2020.

There won’t be any achievements at launch, either, but apparently those will be added soon. They emphasized that the games will still be keeping track of your achievements, though.

A big deal was made of the fact that Chromecast Ultra would be able to access Stadia, but turns out, that won’t be true at launch. At first, only the ultras that ship with Stadia controllers will be able to do that. But, ‘soon after launch’, that will be remedied.

Family controls will be available at launch, but not family sharing, so you won’t be able to access your kid’s libraries or vise-versa to save money. It’s not due to come for a while, but apparently “it’s a high priority feature”, so it’ll be coming around early next year.

The buddy pass, which was a bonus feature for Founder Editions of the Stadia that allowed friends a “3-month stadia subscription”, won’t launch adjacent to the platform. You’ll need to wait about two weeks before you can spread the love to your pals.

And finally, if you happened to pre-order the Stadia with the Chromecast and controllers, you’ll need to wait a few days for shipping and the like. It could be anywhere from just a few days to a few weeks, depending on how lucky you are.

So yeah. A bit messy, sure, but what console launch ultimately isn’t?