Google Stadia Award, Release Details Expected for "Netflix Video Games"

Google is expected to reveal more details about its Stadia video game streaming service Thursday in an announcement that will closely examine a new entertainment medium that has attracted other tech giants and put pressure on video game retailers traditional.

Stadia said it would provide details on the cost of the service, the games available and other launch details during a live broadcast. At present, it is not clear whether Stadia will use a subscription model or other pay structure when it is launched later this year.

"Some news can not wait for E3," Stadia said in a teaser message, referring to the upcoming E3 California game conference.

At a first event in March, Google said that Stadia would provide users with access to high-quality games without the need for a traditional video game console such as Microsoft's Xbox One or PlayStation 4 from Sony. The leaders said that players could connect to Stadia in seconds. the Google Chrome web browser to play on a variety of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Google is one of the leading technology companies developing video game streaming services. Amazon and Microsoft would each build their own cloud-based platform. Apple also unveiled this year its own video game service for its platforms, called Apple Arcade.

As more and more consumers are using digital downloads rather than physical copies of video games, traditional retailers are struggling to maintain sales. In a worrying development, GameStop's shares fell by more than 30% in deals on Thursday after the company announced that it would eliminate its dividend to offset lower revenues.

While GameStop executives attributed the decline in sales in part to the lack of new versions of consoles from Sony or Microsoft, whose current hardware has been on the market for years. But the rise of streaming platforms could have an impact on the video game industry in the same way that Netflix has upset the video rental industry.

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"While GME believed that the elimination of dividends would provide the flexibility needed to generate shareholder value and transform GME for the future, the results of Apr-Q and the intensification Apple's Arcade competition and Alphabet's Stadia suggest that this could be over, "said Camilla Yanushevsky, an analyst at CFRA Research in a note.