PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ON NEWS BREAK
The cost of cable surged in 2020, despite the increase of bodies at home during the pandemic. In fact, a majority of service providers will continue this trend on into 2021, as many have reported that they will increase monthly service plans by 30 a month in some cases.
People are cutting chords, and minimalists are downsizing. TV manufacturers are scrambling to think outside of the box. Companies like VIZIO are expanding their platform for sports-dedicated programming. Advertisers are finding a more effective means for getting their messages out. And, LG has been focused on bringing Stadia Cloud Gaming to their webOS Smart TVs in late 2021.
Set to offer immersive 5.1 gaming experiences to audiences on lockdown, LG announced a partnership with Google on January 11th that would allow LG to natively support Stadia gameplay via webOS and Google TV, making them the first TV manufacturer to support extensive gameplay exclusively on-screen.
Smart TVs running webOS 6.0 and webOS 5.0 will be the first to receive Stadia services later this year.
“Supporting Stadia on LG TVs is our commitment to customers that gaming is an increasingly important feature expected by LG TV owners,” said Lee Sang-woo, SVP of corporate Business Strategy at LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. “Stadia is changing how people access their favorite games and by providing webOS compatibility, we’re making an early commitment to the platform.”
Taking advantage of premium gaming experiences, state-of-the-art displays, and 5.1 surround sound, Stadia games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, NBA 2K21, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and Watch Dogs: Legion, will instantly be accessible to Stadia Pro users.
Using a cloud-based platform, downloads are non-essential (except for downloading the Stadia app, itself). While players will need a Stadia-branded controller, they won’t need a separate console. No additional hardware is required, and games can be accessed anywhere Stadia gaming is available.
“When it comes to gaming, it’s hard to beat the advanced combination of Stadia and LG OLED TVs,” claims a spokesperson for LG, “OLED’s self-lighting pixels ensure best-in-class HDR picture quality with deep blacks and extremely accurate colors. LG became the first company to launch HDR-capable 4K OLED TVs in 2015 and content on LG OLED TVs – both streaming and externally stored – benefit from the display’s fast 1ms response time, outstandingly low input lag without experiencing any loss in picture quality.”
The company plans to launch its Stadia services within the second half of 2021. Stadia already offers more than 130 games with more being added regularly.
Games can be purchased, individually. However, Stadio Pro does offer a subscription service.
We’ve seen systems come and go. But, Stadia could very well be a worthy contender against Sony’s long-awaited PS5 and XBOX Series X consoles — both of which are still hard to come by, months after their initial release.
